Midnight (3 page)

He narrowed his eyes at her, the set of his mouth grim. “
Not
another word.”

She clamped her mouth shut and swallowed hard. Her vision
faded, and the last thing she saw before she hit the floor was the deadly look
in his eyes.

Fuck
.

Now what was he supposed to do with her? It would have been
much easier to walk her to his car. He couldn’t exactly fling her over his
shoulder and carry her out. Surely she had nosy neighbors. All of these snotty
little neighborhoods did.

He looked down at her, a twinge of guilt knifing through
him. He hadn’t meant to scare her this badly.

Or had he?

Maybe. Impulse control wasn’t exactly his strong point.

She was a lot smaller than he’d expected. On the screen she’d
looked so big, like a larger-than-life fashion doll with her obviously dyed
bleach-blonde, teased into a puffy mane and eighteen pounds of makeup covering
her face. She had those big breasts, too, but he’d wondered if they might be
real.

Lying in a heap on the kitchen floor, her light brown hair
fanned out around her, she looked almost frail. But even through regular
clothes, he could see a hint of that killer body he knew she possessed—the one
she flaunted with abandon in the movies.

He had to stop that train of thought right now. If he was
going to teach her any kind of a lesson, and he definitely planned to do just
that, he would have to carry out his original plan. His plan most certainly did
not involve admiring that incredibly curvy body in any fashion—as much as he’d
like to. Later, there would be plenty of time for that. Now the question
remained, how was he going to get her home?

“Hey, Amara. Wake up.”

Nothing.

“Amara?” He bent down and shook her lightly. She stirred,
but didn’t open her eyes.

Wonderful
. He should have planned this better. If he’d
just sat down and thought about it a little longer—

Without leaving him much time to react, Amara jumped up and
took a swing at him. Something hard clipped him on the side of his face. She
pulled her arm back to swing again, but he was ready for her this time. He
grabbed her wrist and squeezed. She cried out and dropped whatever it was she’d
been holding, the object clattering to the floor.

“Let me go!”

He snorted, holding her off with minimal effort. He had to
admit, though, that he hadn’t expected her to be this strong. For such a little
thing, he could picture her holding her own easily with almost anyone.

But not him. She wasn’t any match for him. No woman was, and
he made sure they were all aware of that. “Why don’t we take a little ride in
my car?”

She stilled and glared at him. “Is that some kind of a euphemism
for sex? Is that what you want from me?”

He laughed. “I’m not looking for sex.” Although seeing her
in person may have changed his mind on that. “I just want to talk to you for a
little while.”

He rubbed his jaw, which was aching a little from her blow. “What
did you hit me with, anyway?”

“A teakettle.”

“A teakettle?” He’d been shot at, stabbed, run over, and
stuck in more life-threatening situations than he could count, but no one had
ever smacked him in the face with a
teakettle
before. It was a little
unsettling that she’d tried to beat him up with a kitchen tool. What was she
going to do next, try to give him a haircut with a cheese grater?

“If you come willingly, this will be much easier.”

She shook her head. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Then I guess I’m going to have to make you very
uncomfortable.” He pulled a length of twine cording from his jacket pocket and
bound her hands behind her back. She struggled, and it almost shamed him that
he was enjoying her fear.

Almost
. He couldn’t quite make himself feel the
remorse he should probably feel.

He shouldn’t be feeling bad. In the back of his mind,
somewhere, he knew what he was doing was wrong. But this fixation he’d
developed had clouded his better judgment. He’d feel the guilt later, probably
more than he could handle, but now he just felt the need to find a way to rid
his thoughts of her.

She ground the heel of her boot into the top of his foot in
a last ditch effort to save herself. He laughed at the idea of such a little
woman getting the better of him. It had never happened before, not even while
he was human, and he wasn’t about to let it happen now. He started to tighten
the bonds around her wrists even more, but changed his mind at the last minute.

Instead, he pulled her against him so her arms were flush
with his chest, her hands dangerously close to his cock. He made the mistake of
inhaling her scent, a rich blend of cinnamon and spice, and it nearly drove him
out of his mind.

He resisted the urge to groan and reminded himself that he
was here for a reason other than sex. Although the thought of getting her naked
in his bed held more appeal by the minute, he had more important things to do
first.

Pushing aside her hair, he leaned in and licked the tender
skin of her neck. “Do you know what I’m going to do with you?”

“The only thing I want you to do is let me go.” She wiggled
against him, unaware that every movement sent a jolt of fire through his body.
Her fingers brushed his rapidly hardening cock. He could feel how hot they were
even through the fabric of his jeans. He inhaled more of her spicy scent and
fantasized about what her blood would taste like.

He
would
taste her, possibly in more ways than one.
But not yet. He resisted the urge to sink his fangs into her delicate flesh for
a small sample. For now, he contented himself with tasting the fear that
lingered on her skin, along with a sweet, almost sensual note he hadn’t planned
on.

“I have big plans for you, Amara. I can’t wait to get you
home and get a taste of the hot blood I can feel pounding in your veins.”

She shivered. When she spoke, her tone was meeker, more
uncertain. “If you let me go now, I promise not to press charges. I’ll pretend
like this whole thing never happened.”

“When I’m through with you, my dear, I’ll make sure it will
be impossible for you to forget.”

She whimpered and her legs seemed to give out. She leaned
hard against him and he sucked in a sharp breath at the feel of her wrists
rubbing against his cock. She had to know how hard he was, it would be
impossible for her not to feel it. He shoved her away and paced the room,
trying to get control of himself before he did something stupid like rip off
her clothes and take her right there in her kitchen.

He grunted and slammed his hand into the wall. He would
never
allow himself to touch her intimately without consent. No matter how much he
suddenly wanted to, he wouldn’t take her without her permission.

At least not in the sexual sense. He’d come here with the
intention of taking her back to his house—keeping her there until she’d learned
her lesson—and he wasn’t going to stop because of a stupid little attraction he
felt towards the woman.

“Let’s go.” He grabbed her arm a little too roughly, trying
to compensate for his uncharacteristic lack of control over his body.

“Where do you think you’re taking me?” She stumbled and he
had to slow his pace so she could keep up. He drew in a few deep breaths to
steady his rapid breathing. When he was finally ready to face her, he was able
to plaster some semblance of an evil smile across his face.

“I can’t tell you until we get there. That would ruin the
surprise.”

He led her out to his car and had to fight with her to get
her into the passenger seat. At one point she opened her mouth to scream, but
he quickly clamped his hand over it.

“That wouldn’t be a very wise idea.”

She bit into his palm and he dropped his hand. The second he
let go she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Somebody help me!”

A few people stopped to stare.

He stuffed Amara into the passenger seat and held up his
hand. Holding her in place with one hand, pressing hard against her shoulder,
Marco motioned to the passersby on the street. “Move along folks. I’m a bail
recovery agent. This woman skipped out on a bond, and I have to bring her in to
the police station.”

They accepted his lie without question, going back about
their business like they hadn’t just seen him put a woman with her hands tied
behind her back into his car.

He laughed, thinking that couldn’t have happened anywhere
but New York or L.A.

He buckled the seat belt around Amara and closed the door,
walking around to the other side of the car and getting behind the wheel. Once
he had the car on the road she turned to him.

“You’re a scumbag.” She shifted in the seat, adjusting her
hands. “Worse than a scumbag. You’re…you’re…”

“Believe me, honey, I’ve been called so much worse than you
can even imagine.” He stopped at a red light and turned to her. “You’d be a lot
more comfortable if you faced forward and rested your hands flat against the
seat back.”

“Go to hell.”

“I’ve already been there. It wasn’t so bad.” The light
turned green and he turned left, heading toward the highway that would take
them back to his house. “Why don’t you just relax and enjoy the ride? We’re
going to be in the car for a while.”

She turned her nose up at him in a gesture that was almost
comical and looked out the window. Her voice was haughty when she spoke. “If
you’re not going to take me back home this second, I’m not going to talk to you
for the rest of the ride.”

That was fine with him.

* * * * *

Oh, wasn’t this just
perfect?
It had been bad when
she couldn’t find a job, but being unemployed was nothing compared to being
spirited away to some isolated house in the middle of the woods with a lunatic
that thought he was a vampire.

She rubbed her wrists, still red and sore from the rope he’d
bound them with. He’d told her they wouldn’t hurt so much if she’d sat still
instead of trying to work her arms free, but did he really expect her to sit
there and allow him to kidnap her without trying to free herself? The fact that
she didn’t have a master’s degree did not make her an idiot.

At least he’d untied her hands when they arrived. If there
was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was being totally at the mercy of a
man—especially when the man outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds and was
probably in desperate need of his daily medication.

She looked out the window into the fading daylight. Even if
she had been able to get the window up, she wouldn’t have been able to do
anything about it. Her room was three stories up and rocks littered the ground
below. If she even survived a fall that far, she’d be too broken to get away.
Until she could find a way downstairs, she was stuck.

“Are you hungry, Amara?”

She spun, startled. She hadn’t even heard him come in. She
expected him to be standing in the doorway, but he was less than a foot away.
She backed up until her back was pressed against the cool window.

“Amara?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t seem to make a
sound. She shook her head, hoping he’d just go away. Food was the last thing on
her mind right now. She just wanted to be home, relaxing in a warm bubble bath
with a good book and a pint of her favorite ice cream.

“You don’t want anything?” His voice was low, almost
seductive in tone. She blinked, not sure where
that
thought had come
from. The last thing she needed to be thinking about was seduction.

Although, if it would save her life…

No.
That was a bad idea, no matter how she looked at
it. Even if he wasn’t a total nutcase, she didn’t even know his name. “I’m not
really hungry. Being kidnapped by a man who threatens to suck the life out of
you tends to do that to a woman.”

He laughed. “Suck the life out of you? I would never do
that.”

“Isn’t that what
vampires
do?”

“Of course not.” He shook his head, his expression annoyed. “Why
is it that you humans will believe anything you read in a book or see in a
movie? In my opinion, real life experiences always count for so much more.”

“Oh, and I suppose you’re some kind of authority on the lives
of
real
vampires?” She snorted, getting a little irritated herself. “Tell
me this, hot shot. If you’re the vampire you seem to think you are, how could
you come to my house, in broad daylight, and push your way inside without an
invitation?”

“Ah, the wonders of Hollywood.” He took a step closer and
she wished there was some way she could melt into the window and disappear. “Tell
me, Miss Daniels, do you always believe everything you see on television
without question?”

“No. That would be a stupid thing to do.”

“Then how can you pretend you know about my kind? In truth,
most of you closed-minded humans have no idea.”

She rolled her eyes. In spite of her fear, this conversation
was getting out of hand. “You seem to be forgetting a very important fact. Vampires
are
fiction!
Everything about them is make-believe.”

“You think so?” His lips curled into a humorless smile,
revealing gleaming white fangs that had to be almost an inch long.

She blinked hard a few times, sure those hadn’t been there a
few seconds ago. Laughing shakily, she tried to make light of the situation. “Wow.
We could have used your makeup artist on the last film. Those are good. They
look almost real.”

“Almost, huh?” He walked forward until his body was just
barely brushing against hers. “What would you do if I told you they’re very
real?”

He ran his tongue along the fangs and she gulped in a
breath. They couldn’t be real. Vampires were just like every other thing termed
supernatural, a byproduct of someone’s vivid imagination.

“What if I told you I’ve seen better?” She scoffed at the
fangs, but there was a little voice of doubt inside her. She stomped it to
death without much effort. “You have to let me go. Someone will come looking
for me sooner or later.”