Vampire Lover (3 page)

Luckily, he wasn’t pressing too hard on her neck, but using just enough pressure to keep her from squirming free.

"Surely you wouldn’t be stupid enough to bite me so close to a crowd?" she protested.

"You were waiting for me." His tone was accusatory. Darkness slipped behind the blue of his irises like free-flowing India ink.

Kelsie’s stomach dropped at the sight. Her heart was beating so loudly, she couldn’t hear anything else.

She knew she had to hang on to her anger. If she didn’t, she’d be totally helpless, totally screwed. No way did she want to become part of those missing-people statistics.

"Vain, much?" she snapped, her fingers tugging on his.

The vampire’s head angled. One raised eyebrow suggested he questioned her response.

"I don’t want
you,
" she said. "I’m looking for a wolf."

His hold eased. Visibly perplexed, he said, "Wolf?"

"Why are you here, in public?" She didn’t sound so very panicky, she thought. If his grip loosened more, she could tear herself away.

"I think you know the answer to that," he said.

His tone was as seductive as the shadows, seeming to caress her chill-riddled skin everywhere at once, in sharp contrast to the reality of the situation. He had Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

19

just sampled some of that reason for being here from her punctured lip.
Blood.
An appalling thought, yet she’d be damned if she would show her reaction.

Animals were attracted to weakness. Vampires were predators.

"I’m not part of the snack bar," Kelsie said. "And none of your business."

"On the contrary, your presence is of great concern to me."

"Said like a true homicidal maniac. But I didn’t believe you existed. I’m not sure if I believe it now."

"You know who I am?"

"Don’t you mean
what
you are?"

His eyes sought to deepen the connection. "You weren’t waiting for me?"

"Get over yourself."

He considered that reply. "You’d find a maniac preferable?"

"Infinitely."

The handsome devil gave her a stunning, if uncertain, grin, without offering visual evidence of his species. Kelsie didn’t have to see fangs to realize how serious her situation was. Each passing second made it more obvious that he wasn’t going away.

He was toying with her.

Vampires, Kelsie remembered, were little more than tricks of darkness and light, occupying the gray space between life and death. Not here fully, and not there. It was anyone’s guess how they survived at all, or why blood kept them activated.

This one’s mouth had been on hers before she’d known it—a strange kind of introduction to the threat 20

Vampire Lover

of impending death by blood loss. But she was still alive.

"Why do you want a wolf?" His eyes were keen and demanding, daring her to explore their baby-blue depths.

Kelsie refused to answer. She hated being trapped by anyone or anything, anywhere. Her grandmother had raised her to be independent long before turning her loose on Miami. Years of martial arts would help her in another minute, she was sure, if she didn’t drop from fear or fangs first.

"Wolves haven’t helped your kind in a century,"

the vampire added. As if that made any sense at all.

"Why don’t you have to wear a big V on your forehead to warn people who’s in the house?" Kelsie snapped, flicking her gaze upward briefly to see the darkness behind his eyes nearly overwhelm the blue.

That darkness was a warning, she intuited. She had to power back her anger or risk further inciting his. A big sucker like this would be way too powerful to get away from if he marked her as a target. He could probably bite her and be gone before anyone noticed.

So, why hadn’t he already done so?

She swallowed hard. "Go away or I’ll scream."

The threat sounded anemic.

"Perhaps you’re right," he said.

His voice was way too suggestive, deepened by unspoken sexual promise. Instead of backing off, though, he leaned more of his weight into her and whispered prophetically, "We can meet at a better time."

The vampire, she was astounded to find, was solid, Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

21

and hard all over. His arousal was evident. The fact that vampires could be sexual creatures came as a shock to Kelsie, since most people would tend to think the only thing to worry about were the teeth.

And as he leaned closer, the night…

The night seemed suddenly to extinguish the light of the torches, blackness blending with the red tint of a disturbed moon. She and the vampire were drenched in moonlight that seemed to stick in her throat, choking off her next breath.

When her eyes met his, all peripheral movement ceased. The club scene fell away into the distance.

Adrenaline shot through her veins as the vampire’s blue eyes searched hers, seeking something. The intensity of their locked gazes was almost painful.

Kelsie wanted to run, and keep on running, but couldn’t move a muscle. She wanted to nail this bloodsucker to the wall with his own teeth, ripped from his preposterous mouth.

The moment was both deadly, and extremely erotic.

A spark of wild attraction flared inside of Kelsie, burning as hot as the vampire’s touch. Hot, and intimate. She couldn’t look away to save her life.

Her chills were history.

The damned vampire didn’t back off or let up. He met her heat, degree by degree, with his hips tight to hers. His body called to hers seductively. The distant part of Kelsie still connected to her brain realized that this could very well be the end of her life and the loss of her soul, and yet she stood there. As he did. He seemed to be waiting for something with obvious wariness. What? A poke in the chest with a sharp 22

Vampire Lover

stick?

In spite of thoughts of retaliation, Kelsie hadn’t gotten in so much as one solid punch. With each passing second in his wicked embrace, she lost more of the will to fight him off. Her anger had been twisted, maneuvered, and he had to be doing this, using that mesmerizing voodoo vampires were rumored to possess.

She was in serious trouble. Already, her hips pressed back against his, independent of the inner red flags. Her unmentionable places dampened further, as if they might lure his greedy attention there. An uneasy feeling grew, deep down inside of her. The very core of her body wanted to know what this vampire had to offer. Chances were, the little devil on her shoulder whispered, he would have had years to perfect his bedroom skills.

Not. Good.

Needing to save herself, Kelsie scrambled for a last hold on reality, and found one. Facts. She was good at facts. And the main one here was that there was something decidedly wrong about a sexually charged vampire. Totally unfair. Slightly creepy.

"Dream on." She said the words defiantly, resolutely. "Not with this girl. Not tonight or any other night."

The realization of this statement being insincere was more frightening to her than anything else, and another hint that the fantasy heat trick the vampire had going for him was melting her judgment and inhibiting her ability to think straight. Why else would her imagination be conjuring up dangerously indecent Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

23

thoughts? About him?

Damn it, she was wavering, and not nearly scared enough!

In the midst of all the crashing thoughts and illicit cravings, while Kelsie’s mind reached for a firmer grasp on how to get out of this, the vampire’s lips brushed hers a second time, almost ghostlike.

She closed her eyes.

A brief pinch of pain woke her from her stupor.

Ready to shove the damned vampire away, and back into the coffin he belonged in, Kelsie opened her eyes to find him near the doorway, looking at her over a broad, muscled shoulder.

"Connor," he said soberly, as if he’d just caught her name out of the ether and it didn’t sit well. His eyes glinted. His blond hair settled to stillness against his chiseled cheek.

Kelsie just stared, teeth clenched, face flushed, fear and anxiety and embarrassment merging into a tight ball of aggravation. He’d been the one to break the spell.

And he knew her name.

He’d be able to find her in the future, if vampires used phone books or the Internet. Hell, having tasted her, he might be able to find her in some other revolting way.

He couldn’t have missed the way her body reacted to his. He might assume it was a permanent invitation.

Seemingly in afterthought, the Other she hadn’t been expecting spoke again, with a glance up at the moon.

"You want a wolf? Why not just call them?" he 24

Vampire Lover

suggested.

Then he was gone.

Giving in to the weakness in her knees, Kelsie slumped against the wall, lucky to be breathing. She’d had a serious mental and physical lapse. The arrogant bastard had gotten too damned close, and she had allowed it.

She swiped at her lip with the back of her hand to erase the feel of his mouth, and felt wetness. Glancing at the spot of blood on her knuckle, she swayed. It was a monstrous find—blood made to appear darker by the ghastly moonlight.

Her heart slammed against her ribs in protest. Both hands went to her neck. No blood there, thank God, but she did find a scratch that made her head go light.

The bloodsucker had tried to bite her!

Her gaze flew to the empty doorway. It took another minute to be able to speak. Tossing her hair out of her face with a quivering, bloodstained finger, she said with a rise of her Irish temper, "Yes, run, you lousy, bloodsucking son of a bitch."

"Connor."

Hayden pushed through the throng of people without stopping to return the attentions of the women eyeing him appreciatively.

He needed time to think.

It was absurd that after all these years he would stumble across one his old enemies. In Miami. In a nightclub.
The
enemy. One of the hellish Connor clan.

The bane of his family’s existence for as long as he Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

25

could remember. Connor—the Irish equivalent of the Terminator in slaying his kind.

No wonder the air had been disturbed and his attention captured. The question plaguing him now was why he hadn’t perceived the extent of the threat, even when it came in a delicious package. He had been all over her. Hell, he’d been aroused.

What was a Connor was doing so far from Irish soil, anyway? She had to have followed him, lured him to her on purpose. It was the only explanation for the meeting.

"Connor." Hayden reached the sidewalk without looking back, but didn’t get any farther. Her perfume wafted upward from his hands and his shirt. Her sweetness sat on his lips. His hand still smarted from closeness to that silver chain she wore.

He glanced down the street. She would pursue him, no doubt about it. It’s what Slayers did.

"You are a good liar, Connor. An actress of the highest caliber." Hayden closed his fingers over the burn on his palm. "You said you weren’t after me, and I nearly believed you."

She had, in fact, seemed as shocked as he had been.

She had allowed him a taste, and he still felt the aftermath.

Slayer blood was said to be a delicacy. But surviving any sort of closeness to a Slayer was unprecedented, and highly unusual. No vampire he knew of had survived such a forbidden assignation.

Still, the flicker of his excitement was tempered somewhat by a wave of residual resentment. A reminder that he had come to Miami to get away from 26

Vampire Lover

the old feuds. He thought he had escaped the problem of ancient vendettas by leaving them and the blood oaths behind. Now he had to deal with this young Connor incarnation. Nothing had changed.

This Connor was part of the family that had hunted his family for centuries. Connor killings had been swift, brutal, until his family was all but extinct.

He was the last of his bloodline.

Of course, it was no secret that his family had enjoyed their share of Connor blood, in return. A blood oath went both ways. He had known there were two Connors left in his part of the world. One of them was old, nearly blind and feeble, in County Clare. The other one, this youngest Connor, had left Clare and against all odds was here. Not only in the same city, but blonde, youthful and as sexy as anything on two legs.

And she was a Slayer.

She’d inherited the gene that Connor men had for centuries scoured the countryside for. Connor men sought out and married women with a special gene they called "Sense," perhaps hoping to shore up their own family’s longevity. The DNA that produced a Slayer was a delicate one, preferring to be housed in women. But rarely was it passed on from mother to daughter.

Except here, it seems.

This Connor was the daughter of Katherine, the Slayer who had taken his father to an early grave.

Hayden had to ignore the jumping pulses of interest, because the feud had merely changed continents. Against nature, Connors had found a way Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

27

to pass the gene along, by birth. He hadn’t escaped his past at all.

Damn it, he should have recognized the shade and shine of her green eyes. He hadn’t been prepared. How could he have been? Even with the name Connor, she should have been normal.

So, who was the real
sucker
in this bit of introductory foreplay?

What would transpire when she came after him?

"What will it be then, Slayer?" This time when his fangs extended, Hayden bared them with a sad, questioning smile.

It took Kelsie five more minutes to gather herself sufficiently to move, and then it was only to step over the broken glass.

Her trembling had lessened. She felt steadier, though oddly distanced from the world around her.

Her anger had finally burned through some of the bullshit. She had peered into the eyes of the wrong beast. A willing sacrifice, for the sake of a newspaper.

"Thanks for nothing," she muttered to the moon.

Now she was all too aware of
him.
Although the vampire had gone, his presence lingered, wrapped around her like sticky, muscular, invisible arms.