by Sharon Page
Michael ignored his wound and watched Erin’s face. He knew the routine. The blood would dry almost instantly and then drop away. Before it fell to the ground, it would evaporate as though it had never existed. The long, straight slice would knit together, change to a shiny pink scar, and finally disappear. All in the space of a few seconds. All right before her eyes.
She stared at him, speechless.
“I’m no myth, Erin. I’m real.”
Had he succeeded in convincing her or terrifying the daylights out of her?
Her mouth hardened into a firm line, and one brow arched up. “Oh, come on. I bet any rookie magician in Vegas could do that.”
Now he was the one rendered speechless.
“Were you planning on making me your late-night snack?” She cocked her head to the side.
He didn’t know what to make of her new, more cynical attitude. Apparently his display had amused her more than it had frightened her. Likely she was humoring him.
It wounded him.
Fervent vampire hunters pursued him on a daily basis, and those well-armed warriors quaked in fear in his presence. In his early days, long before he’d gained sufficient control of his hunger, he had rampaged through Regency London, terrifying the populace. Pimps and drug dealers—the scum he tended to prey on now—turned into puddles of whimpering cowardice before him.
And yet a five-foot-five-inch private investigator was studying him as though he were a four-year-old wearing a fake cape with a phony sword in hand.
“No, love. A man does not eat his soul mate. Except in the erotic sense.”
He had three nights to convince Erin she was his soul mate—three nights to the next full moon, when he would reach the end of his two hundred year existence as a Varkyre and burn up in a ball of fire. Three nights to have wild sex with Erin and convince her she loved him.
This did not look good.
“Well, you certainly ate me in the erotic sense,” she remarked, cool and wary. “And you are exceptional at it, I must say. Now you can just pack up the undead routine and head on home.”
Michael bit back a groan.
Once again it appeared he was not going to have a lot of luck putting his life and soul in a woman’s hands.
Erin put her hands on her hips and glared down at Michael. She was not afraid of him—six feet-four inches of massive male or not. She knew how to combat a man’s strength, and she wouldn’t be in trouble unless he was taking serious drugs. He didn’t look stoned, but with his reflective silver eyes, it was hard to tell.
Unless he really was a vampire with superhuman strength.
Yeah, right.
“Erin, I do not have to remain a vampire. I have the chance to regain my soul.”
His expression became imploring, and she found herself captivated once more by his stunningly beautiful eyes. She loved dark-haired men, especially ones with blue-black tresses and sinfully long lashes. Her traitorous body heated for him even now.
Michael exuded a seductive, primal sexual allure that would be perfect for a suave creature of the night.
If such a thing actually existed.
Given that he fit the part so well, perhaps he’d purchased some wacko cosmetic dentistry to complete the fantasy.
“You can help me, love,” he continued.
“I can?” Erin kept her tone neutral, intrigued to hear him out before throwing him out. “This sounds good. How, exactly?”
From any guy, the words soul mate would have sent her running as far as possible. They sounded so phony. Just like when her last potential boyfriend had told her on their first date he wanted more than a platonic relationship. His idea of seductively sweeping her into bed consisted of pulling out his electronic organizer to set a date for sex.
From a hunk like Michael dressed in black motorcycle at-tire—a man with the teeth of a beast and the graceful, predatory presence of a panther—the idea of soul mate made her shiver with desire despite herself. It was like being singled out by the leader of the pack.
He looked hopeful. “It involves really great sex and falling in love with each other.”
“Sex will help you regain your soul?”
“Really great sex.”
Scenes from their e-mails flooded Erin’s head. Her cheeks flamed. Resisting the impulse to picture this hot hunk doing those things to her, she tapped her fingers on her arms.
“Okay, right. You’re undead, and you need to have sex to regain your soul. So, what happens? We go to bed a few times, and then you suddenly jump up and claim you’re cured? Do you have to bite my neck? Geez, I now understand why you’re dating on the Internet.”
Michael rubbed his temple. “Erin, love, I had no choice. I’ve roamed the earth for two centuries. I drink blood for sustenance, burn in sunlight, and I spent one hundred years sleeping in a coffin. Did you think I’d find a lot of dates by advertising those things? Would you have wanted to meet me if I’d been honest?”
“I would never have sex in a coffin,” she cried, without thinking.
“Don’t worry, neither would I.”
“Wait a minute. Do you actually go around biting necks? Or do you stick your teeth in bags of blood like the nice vampires do in books?” She asked the question sarcastically, but she felt ice cold. Was he just a guy with a weird vampire sex fetish, or did he attack people?
She’d checked his entire past—hadn’t found a whiff of this.
“I am a predator, sweetheart. I try to restrict myself to the scum when I can, like drug dealers and pimps. But you can help me change that. You can free me.”
Okay, this had gone on long enough.
“I don’t really care if you are Dracula or a government experiment, a refugee from Area Fifty-One, or a genetic freak. You lied to me. And if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that men don’t change. I doubt vampire males are any different. If you are not on the other side of the door in thirty seconds—” She broke off, blinking.
He was standing on the landing outside her door, which now stood wide open, watching her and obviously waiting for her reaction.
How in hell had he—?
In two quick lunges, she reached the door and slammed it in Michael’s face.
God, she was exhausted.
As Erin cranked her steering wheel to maneuver into her office parking spot, she jerked her foot down by accident. She shoved on the gas, and her car barely squeaked by a concrete column.
Her third near miss this morning.
She slammed the gearshift into park before she accidentally drove off the edge of the parking garage.
Groaning, Erin slumped forward and rested her forehead against the leather-wrapped steering wheel. Not only was she exhausted, she was freaked out, shaky, and furious that she still wished she’d done Michael before she’d found out how crazy he was.
All night she’d dreamed about him and awoken at least a dozen times from a nightmare, drenched in sweat. Each dream started out wildly erotic, where she and Michael fucked until she was senseless with pleasure. In half the dreams he then plunged his fangs into her neck and sucked her dry. In the other half she slammed a stake into his heart to kill him in self-defense.
Questions kept haunting her.
Did she really buy the vampire routine?
How else to explain the amazing things he’d done right before her eyes?
Should she call the cops?
Was there a law against pretending to be a vampire? For that matter, was there a law against being a vampire? Maybe he sucked on only willing victims. A man so unbelievably sexy must have women eager to bare their throats for him. Especially if he started with the mind-blowing oral sex he’d given her….
And the most unnerving question of all: why, deep down inside, did she still want him?
Erin shoved open her car door, pausing at the echoing sound of footsteps. Impatiently ignoring her thudding heart, she swung her legs around and got out. Of course there were footsteps. This was a parking garage, attache
d to an office building, and while she always arrived at seven fifteen A.M., she wasn’t the only person to start so early. Jessica, her receptionist and bookkeeper, for example, began at seven.
Rays of sunlight spilled into the open parking garage, but the center core of elevators and stairs were shadowy and dark. After locking her car, Erin flipped up the lid of her cell phone to speed-dial her office. She planned to talk to Jessica or someone else for the entire time she made her way from her parking spot to the office reception desk.
“Ms. Kennedy?”
The harsh male voice surprised her, and her fingers slipped off the preprogrammed phone key. It wasn’t Michael’s voice. She spun around.
A man stepped out of the shadows on the other side of her car and stood silhouetted against bright daylight. Though she couldn’t see his face against the glare, and the man was huge, she definitely knew he wasn’t Michael. This guy was bulky. He looked like a dark wall.
Slowly Erin’s blindness faded, and she recognized the mammoth glaring at her. Dave Phillips. A married construction contractor posing as a single man under the dating name “richandavailable.” Yesterday she’d sent a report to Megan Phillips, confirming her client’s suspicions about her chronically unfaithful husband
Phillips took a menacing step closer. “Look, lady, you’d better keep out of my private business. My wife isn’t gonna leave me—she’s wasting your time. We’ve been down this road before. So I suggest you quit poking your nose into my private life, if you know what’s good for you.”
Erin couldn’t believe the balding brute was talking to her like some second-rate mobster. “Are you threatening me?”
He squared his enormous shoulders. His beefy right hand clenched into a fist. “Take it how you like,” he said as he took another lumbering step toward her.
Was he actually going to hit her? Well, he’d get a kick in the crotch before he got—
Something exploded behind her. An incredible force knocked her forward, yet she hadn’t felt anything hit her.
She steadied herself and bit back a shriek.
A tall man dressed in a black T-shirt and black leather pants gripped Phillips by the jaw and held him up against a concrete column. Though Phillips had to weigh more than two hundred and fifty pounds, his attacker held him as though he weighed nothing.
Michael.
With a gasp Erin realized that Michael had raced out of the shadows to protect her. Michael looked terrifying, his face contorted with rage, his mouth wide open, his fangs long, curved, and deadly.
Michael wrenched his victim’s head back to expose the thick throat.
“No. No, Michael! Don’t! Stop!” Erin screamed.
Too late. She clapped her hand to her mouth in horror as Michael bit hard into Phillips’s neck.
She couldn’t let him kill the jerk.
She launched forward, wrapping her arms around Michael’s waist. Michael was rock solid and impossible to move. Desperate, Erin tried hammering on his powerful, wide back, mesmerized by the way his throat moved with every gulp. Phillips had wrapped his arms around Michael, too, and had ceased fighting. He was caressing Michael’s back.
Then Michael reared back, plowing right into her. Unsteady on her low heels, she almost fell, but Michael dropped his victim and grabbed her arm. She was astonished to see his bloodthirsty expression was gone. Instead he gazed at her with tenderness and concern.
“Is he dead?”
Michael shook his head. “You stopped me before that point.” He looked even more amazed by that statement than she felt.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’ll heal. And he won’t remember what happened to him.” Michael drew her close. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She pulled free of his grip, realizing he had been holding her gently. “But you didn’t have to … to bite him. I can look after myself.”
“A man goes a little crazy when the woman he loves is in danger.”
Her heart leaped. His silvery violet eyes narrowed, the gleam in them hot and possessive, promising he would protect her at all costs.
She’d never had a man look at her this way.
Michael’s thick, dark hair spilled across his brow. Dark stubble shadowed his cheeks and jaw, and his powerful body was encased in black. He looked like a lethal panther. A wildcat vowing to pace dutifully at her side.
She didn’t know whether to walk into Michael’s strong embrace or burst into tears. Never had she been so confused about a man. Coming to her rescue was brave, sweet, and noble. Good. But—
“What are you doing here? Are you stalking me?”
“Of course not. I’m not some creepy psychopath.”
“Michael, you just drank blood from a human be—” She stared down at Phillips’s huge prone body. Snapped her gaze back to Michael. “So, why are you here?”
“I admit I wanted to try to talk to you one more time. I hoped to make you believe in me. I arrived before dawn, waited in the shadows—” He broke off as a band of bright sunlight slanted over them.
“If you are the undead, doesn’t sunlight burn?”
She got her answer.
Michael cried out and lurched back.
Smoke curled up from his bare forearm. Erin choked on the smell. Michael’s face contorted again, but this time he obviously was in pure agony, his flesh burning where the light touched.
Could this be an elaborate trick? Doubt still fought with faith.
A shaft of sunlight spilled over Michael’s pained face. The ridge of his cheekbone instantly turned black. Tendrils of smoke wafted from his arms, his face, his neck.
She expected him to run for darkness and couldn’t understand why he still stood there. His arms were bubbling now.
“You can’t just let yourself cook.” Erin grabbed his wrist and hauled him into the shadows, beyond the reach of the light. “Is this dark enough?”
“For now.”
She looked around wildly for total darkness. “How do you get out of here?”
“Could I ride in your trunk?”
Erin gaped. Michael winked and smiled, silver-purple eyes crinkling at the side in the most adorable way. But he winced as his grin plumped up his wounded cheek.
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.” She pulled her car keys from the pocket of her beige linen jacket. “Do I drive you to your coffin?”
“Don’t use one anymore. And I’d prefer your place,” his accented voice purred.
She knew exactly what was going through his mind. In truth, she wanted it to, but she just … couldn’t. Could she? “I don’t know. And you’re wounded. Do you vamps have hospitals or something?”
“No. But I’ll heal.” Michael gently encircled her wrist with his large hand. His thumb spiraled sensually on her skin. But despite the erotic skill of his touch, she stiffened.
“I’d never hurt you,” he reassured. “Unless you find multiple orgasms painful.”
She pulled her hand free. “I’m taking you to heal you, Michael. We aren’t going to bed.”
He bent down, bringing his face level with hers. “We’ve already been intimate for months. And I think you enjoyed last night—before the fangs came out.”
She couldn’t deny that. The man licked pussy like nobody’s business. But …
“I was intimate with a charming, seductive human named Michael Rourke.” She pointed at him. “You are a total stranger to me.”
He must have been in pain, but he leaned forward and kissed the tip of her finger softly. “With you, I’m just a man. A man who truly cares about you. You once told me I see into your heart. That’s still true. I love you.”
I love you? Oh, she was so not ready for this. “Look, that means a lot,” she hedged. “And I should thank you for jumping in to stop Phillips, but—”
“Thank me?” Michael’s black brows lifted. He crossed his wounded arms over his broad chest. “I’m insulted. You can command anything of me, Erin. Ask me to walk out into sunli
ght for you, and I’ll do it.” Suddenly he towered over her again, standing his full six-four, as though to show her the power she could command.
“That’s the problem,” she cried. “You are so … intense. I’ve never had any guy say stuff like that to me. It’s hot, but it’s so extreme.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Two hundred years, and I still have no idea how to talk to the woman I love.”
She couldn’t help but giggle. “You are two hundred years old?” She hit the keyless-entry button and the trunk lid popped up with a beep.
“Two hundred and twenty-one.” Michael opened her trunk as wide as he could. As he hoisted himself onto the edge and swung his long, long leather-clad legs in, he groaned. “This is going to be a tight fit.”
Erin shuddered as he dropped himself in. She would freak if she had to close herself into a dark, cramped space like that. It reminded her too much of the times her nanny would make her—the poor little rich kid—stand in her closet for punishment.
But Michael appeared unfazed as he lowered the lid. As it clunked closed, entombing him within, Erin had to lean against the rear fender and gulp several steadying breaths.
She then checked Dave Phillips, who was beginning to regain consciousness, mumbling and groaning. Sure enough, his neck was unmarked.
Erin’s legs wobbled again.
She stared down at Phillips, reluctant to just leave, though unsure how long Michael could stay in her trunk. Did Phillips need medical attention?
With cold dread, she thought of Megan Phillips. What would Phillips do if he regained consciousness and went after her in a fit of thwarted rage? Or had he hurt Megan already?
This was not the place to hang around to think about it. As she stepped back, heels clicking on the concrete, Dave Phillips snapped his eyes open. Groaned. His huge hand clasped around his neck, rubbing as though he had muscle pain. “What the hell did you hit me with?”
She was tempted to reply, “My fist,” except he would expect bruising. Too bad she couldn’t supply any.
“I didn’t,” she replied. “You fell against the column after threatening me. Now get the hell out of here before I call the cops. Which I will do if you have harmed your wife.”