by MJ Compton
“Why not marry Danby?” Restin asked. “It wouldn’t be for long.”
The room went very quiet, as if the walls themselves held their breath. Even her heart felt as if it had ceased beating. Nausea welled in her throat. “No, thank you,” she whispered.
“I ought to kill you for even thinking it,” Stoker added. “Come on, Lucy. Let’s get out of here.” He tugged on her hand.
“If she doesn’t want to divorce Danby, he can die. It’s not that difficult.”
Die? She didn’t like Bill, but she just didn’t want him for a husband. She didn’t want him dead.
Marrying Stoker was starting to sound appealing. “Is your offer still open?” she asked him.
“Forever,” he replied.
“I don’t suppose I could appeal to your patriotism,” Restin said. “You know, your country needs you and all that.”
Lucy shook her head and clutched Stoker’s hand.
Restin sighed, as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. As if he hated doing what he did. “You’re forcing my hand, Miss Callahan. We already know there are women and children living in New Sinai. We know Butler’s wife is pregnant. That would be . . . your sister?”
Lucy froze.
Michelle. He was threatening Michelle.
“Do you want their lives on your conscience, when you could help guarantee their safety?”
He’d trapped her. The women and children had faces and names. They were real to her. Michelle was all the family she had. The room shimmered as tears filled her eyes. “I hate you,” she said. “Can you guarantee my sister’s safety? Or mine?”
“Don’t do it,” Stoker begged.
“It’s not about you. It’s bigger than you,” Restin said.
“Everything is bigger than me, so don’t give me any nonsense about love of country and patriotic duty.” She shuddered. “What do you want me to do?”
“For starters, I’d like you to sit.”
Chapter 2
Lucy’s face was pale. Even her lips had lost color. Desperation filled her pretty green eyes, and her fingers toyed with the short, dandelion-yellow fluff of her hair.
Stoker ached to hold her. Kiss her again. Make love to her. But first he needed to get her out of this overpopulated office.
Damn Restin and his duty.
A single tear trickled down her cheek.
That did it. Only Restin would try to stop him, and in the final confrontation, Restin would lose. Ancient law always superseded modern ways. Lucy was his. It was time to stake his claim.
He slid his arm around her slender waist and lifted her from the floor. Slinging her over his shoulder, her delectable bottom far too close to his nose and mouth, he ran from the room. Ethan and Luke had been standing in front of the door, but they stepped aside to let him pass.
No one tried to stop him. Even Lucy, head dangling somewhere near his waist, was silent. Maybe she’d fainted. Human women did that a lot in the movies.
He crossed the nearly empty parking lot. The waning moon polished the evening landscape silver. His breath hung in white puffs that left a trail anyone could follow.
He paused, not to catch his breath—Lucy was as light as a cloud—but to nip her bottom. She smelled too delicious not to taste.
“Should I start screaming?” she asked, her voice muffled.
He grinned, a new sensation for him. “If you do, I’ll have to do something drastic to quiet you. Like kiss you.”
“Oh.”
She inhaled, as if preparing to shriek. “Help?”
The single word came out in a conversational tone, barely audible above the thumping of their hearts. If he weren’t so eager to kiss her again, he would have laughed.
He stepped into the shadow of a large tree. “I warned you.” He slid her to her feet.
“Yes, you did,” she agreed in a whisper, before looping her arms around his neck.
He didn’t know where to touch her first. He settled for one hand on her back, the other cupping her bottom. Shreds of moonlight tumbled through the bare, lacey branches overhead, tracing the curve of her cheek.
He had to bend at the waist to reach her face.
Her flavor zinged through him as their mouths met. Her scent, green as the essence of spring, filled his head. She was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
“I love the way you kiss,” Lucy whispered.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” he murmured. Not that he had any comparison. He nuzzled her neck, searching for the spot where he would mark her as his alone.
Thank the Ancients for the waning moon, for if it had been waxing, he would not have the willpower to keep from throwing her to the ground and mounting her right there.
She shivered in his arms, and he realized he’d fled the dance hall without fetching her coat. His metabolism, far faster than hers, was so high he rarely felt the cold.
He slid his arm down the backs of her thighs until he reached her knees, and lifted her again. “Let’s get you someplace warm.”
She tightened her arms around his neck and buried her face in the crook where neck met shoulder. Her sweet breath was warm and moist against his bare skin.
She was perfect.
Talk about sweeping a girl off her feet.
Lucy knew this midnight dash was madness. Sane women didn’t let strange men carry them off in grand romantic gestures. But the past week had been so stressful she deserved to wallow in his gallantry for as long as it lasted. She’d earned the right to have her bones kissed molten.
Stoker was in great physical shape, far better than she’d originally supposed when he and his fellow band members had taken on Bill Danby and company. Now he ran with her draped over his shoulder, and the only breathing problems he had were when he kissed her. And, as cold as the evening was, his body was toasty warm against hers.
Why couldn’t they have met in different circumstances, when her life was relatively normal? She was a caterer with backstage contracts for several venues. She met all kinds of people in the course of doing business.
Street lights battled the darkness, dulling the crescent moon. Stoker detoured into a motel parking lot. A really bad motel. The type of establishment where screams for help were part of the ambiance.
He carried her up a flight of narrow steps then along a catwalk of a balcony. He stopped outside Room 217 and lowered her to the cracked concrete. Sickly pinkish light cast deep shadows across the lower half of his face. His black hat sat firmly on his head, masking his eyes. He reached into the pocket of his tight jeans and withdrew a key. His hand trembled.
Somehow, that comforted her.
He opened the door then scooped her off her feet again. Seconds later, he gently laid her on a bed.
Lucy crawled off. The room was completely dark. She heard him scrabbling at the door, the soft snick of a deadbolt and the metallic slide of a safety chain.
The panic she’d refused to feel earlier reared its head with a monstrous roar.
“Lucy?” He said her name softly. Gently. “What’s wrong?”
She cleared her throat. “We need to talk.”
He was silent for several heartbeats. “I’m nervous, too,” he whispered, “but it will be okay. We’re meant to be together.”
His fingers brushed her cheek, and she started. How had he known where she was? The room was as dark as a cave. And how had he gotten so close to her without her hearing him move?
“I’m afraid you misunderstood me,” she began again. “When I asked for help, that’s what I meant. I need your help.”
“I’ll do anything for you.” His voice was as soft as a night breeze; so at odds with the scowling face she recalled.
“I can’t go back to New Sinai.”
“Of course not,” he agreed.
“But someone has to.”
He went very still, even quieter than he’d been. Spooky.
“Stoker?”
He lifted his hand, his fingers sliding through her hair. “Did you leave your favorite outfit there or something?” His other hand clasped the top of her hip. “Don’t worry. I’ll buy you another. I’ll take care of you.”
His assumption that she was a bimbo should have been insulting. “Nothing as mundane,” she said, easing away from him. “It’s more important.”
“This is important,” he said. His huge hands once more found her in the dark. “Once we mate, Restin can’t—”
“I’m scared New Sinai will turn into another Waco.” The words slipped out before she even thought them.
Stoker lifted her again and placed her on the bed.
She groped in the blackness until she found a bedside table and the lamp. She blinked as the dim light banished the dark.
Stoker had shed his hat and now stared at her, an unhappy expression on his face. Lush black hair lay matted against his skull. His eyes narrowed, as if seeking the hidden meaning in her words. “Don’t be,” he finally replied. “Waco was . . . a tragedy of coincidences, and no one will ever know the whole truth about what happened down there, but I can promise you this: not one member of Toke Lobo and the Pack likes fire.”
She didn’t believe him. She couldn’t believe him.
Fear released a gush of words. “I need help getting Michelle out of there. She’s pregnant, Randy won’t let her leave, and she’s all the family I have left. She doesn’t deserve to die like that because she fell in love with the wrong man. Please. I need someone to help me. If I go back, Randy will perform one of his bogus marriage ceremonies, and if I have to sleep with Bill Danby, I will kill myself, and if I’m dead, I can’t help Michelle, and I’ll never be an aunt and . . ..”
Stoker brushed his mouth against hers. “It’ll be okay.”
“I’ll do whatever you want,” she whispered, feeling miserable and cheap.
He pulled away as if she’d slapped him.
“What did you just say?” His mouth was a thin, angry line in his angular face.
What was his problem?
She’d willingly come to his room with him, and he had made no secret that he expected to have sex with her. She’d eagerly responded to his kisses. And she’d just told him . . .
Stoker wadded his fingers into fists. Bruised fists, because he’d fought Bill and the others for her.
If she were a different kind of woman, she would start shedding her clothes. Instead, she reached for his hand, brought the battered knuckles to her mouth, and kissed the contusions.
He jerked free of her grasp. “Do you think I brought you back here just for sex?”
She nodded, misery pooling in her stomach. “Isn’t that what musicians do? Find willing women after a performance and—”
“Do you think my talk of marriage was a pick-up line?” He sounded furious.
She nodded again.
He turned away from her and punched the wall, smashing his fist through the flimsy paneling.
She jumped. “You were serious?”
His nostrils flared. “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.”
Her mind raced. “But you don’t know me. We don’t know each other.”
“What? You want me to court you? Fine. I’ll court you. You need me to prove myself by rescuing your sister? Consider it done.”
The bitterness in his tone cut through her fright to her heart. “You really mean it.”
Onyx-colored eyes locked with hers. “You’re damned lucky the moon is waning. Otherwise, you’d be under me right now.”
She didn’t know what the moon had to do with anything, but it added atmosphere to the mental image his words conjured.
She shoved those heated thoughts aside. “I can draw you a map of New Sinai.”
“I don’t want a map of New Sinai,” he snarled. “I want my mate. I want to make love to my woman. I want to lick her all over. I want to hold her when she cries. I want to go home and settle down and raise a family. That’s what I want, Lucy.”
Her nipples tightened and warmth flooded her lower body. She’d never been so aroused in her life. Her brain stopped functioning except for anything to do with Stoker.
Maybe it was time to get to know each other.
“My favorite color is yellow,” she whispered.
He jerked as if she’d kneed him.
“I love both country music and opera,” she continued. “My favorite food is cheese ravioli in Alfredo sauce. Your turn.”
His eyes widened. “Green. My favorite color is green, like your eyes. Like sun shining through new leaves in the spring.”
“Wow. Do you write lyrics? If you don’t, you should.”
“My favorite food is fresh venison, and I love cold water directly from the spring outside my house,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose at the thought of eating Bambi. “I drink lemonade.”
“I’m a werewolf.”
She grinned. “I’m a butterfly, who was cursed by a jealous crone. With a name like Stoker, I thought you’d be a vampire.”
“Vampires are assholes. My family is so large, we have trouble keeping track of who’s related and who’s not.”
“I have a sister. Just one. She’s pregnant and being held hostage by a weirdo-cult leader who’s stockpiled enough weapons on that mountain of his to start World War Three.” Lucy’s voice cracked, reflecting the fissures in her sanity.
A muscle twitched in Stoker’s jaw. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Butler.”
Relief filled her. “Then we have a deal?”
Anger returned to Stoker’s eyes and mouth. “Forever isn’t a bargaining chip, Lucy.”
Before she could think of a response, Stoker turned his head toward the door. Seconds later, it crashed inward, dead bolt and safety chain popping like corn, and someone flew across the room and tackled him.
Lucy tried to scream, but her heart clogged her throat.
“Somebody grab her!”
Three band members strolled through the gaping portal.
She looked at Stoker’s assailant and recognized Restin. “Let go of him, you bully,” she said as she groped for something with which to hit him.
“She’s dressed, Restin,” Blond Mustache said, sounding amused.
Restin turned toward her as Stoker’s fist connected with his jaw. He didn’t react, except to stare at Lucy with wide blue eyes. Then he looked at Stoker. “You haven’t marked her yet.”
Stoker snarled something unintelligible.
Lucy wrapped her fingers around the cool metal of the lamp. “If you don’t let him up right now, I’m going to bash you.”
All five men stared at her.
“I mean it.” She lifted the lamp.
Something resembling a smile twisted Stoker’s lips. His dark eyes gleamed.
“Leave them alone, Restin,” one of the younger men said.
“No.”
Stoker heaved Restin across the room then climbed to his feet and joined Lucy on the bed as Restin landed in a sprawl against the bathroom door. “We’re doing this her way,” Stoker announced.
“What way is that?” Restin asked.
“We’re getting engaged before we get married.” Stoker glared at each of the men, as if daring them to argue.
“Good. That means she can go back to New Sinai—”
“No!” Lucy hefted the lamp again.
Stoker gently unwrapped her fingers from the base. “I’ll have your ring sent here.”
“She doesn’t have a choice,” Restin said, ignoring h
er.
“You’re right. She doesn’t have a choice. She’s not going back because I won’t allow it.” Stoker settled his arm around her waist and drew her onto his lap.