by Heidi Betts
Uh-huh. That was front page stuff, right there.
If she didn’t find anything of consequence up here, in his “nighttime residence,” she would start poking around downstairs—waaaaaay downstairs—next. Provided she ever made it out of this place alive, since she still wasn’t sure how she’d gotten up here to begin with.
On top of that, the bad news was that her only companion seemed to have disappeared. The room was dark, which made it hard to make out anything of consequence, but she still didn’t see any black, roundish lumps that could be a cowering (or attack-ready) kitty. She also didn’t hear any purring or hissing that might give her a hint of the cat’s hiding place.
But since she had been the one to run him off, it seemed only right for her to try to find him again. Lure him out and make nice.
If that included snooping around in the closet, under the bed, and inside a few dresser drawers . . . well, it was her duty as an animal lover and, um, “guest” of the casino’s owner, really, to be thorough.
Her wineglass clinked when she set it down on the edge of the bureau nearest a door she suspected led to a closet. Knowing Raines, and having seen parts of the rest of his amazing living space, she had no doubt it was huge and luxurious.
She turned the handle, opening the door slowly, just in case it wasn’t a closet, but a hidden torture chamber. Or maybe the room where those brainwashed concubines lazed around until Sebastian came to drink them dry.
Slipping an arm around the jamb, she felt along the wall until she found the light switch and flipped it on. She’d been right, it was a closet, but “walk-in” didn’t even begin to cover it. Her entire apartment could fit inside and probably never ruffle a seam on one of the six million designer suits hanging from its long silver rods.
“Holy Beau Brummell, Batman,” she mumbled to herself. She had never seen so many suit jackets, slacks, shoes, and ties all in one place—not even lined up on racks at the department store.
The tiny squeak of a floorboard sounded behind her, and she turned, expecting to find Fraidy Cat finally coming around again. Instead, a giant shadow towered over her, broad and menacing and looming. And when it opened its mouth, the low, ominous voice sent every bit of courage she’d ever possessed skittering off to parts unknown.
“Looking for something?”
Pair
In retrospect, perhaps he should have turned on a light in the bedroom before moving up behind her. Because she screamed. Like a banshee.
Not a tiny yip of surprise or even a shriek, but a long, high-pitched scream that threatened to shatter his eardrums—as well as those of every dog, bat, and coyote within the city limits.
Reaching out, he clapped a hand over her mouth. He had to stop that ungodly racket before his head exploded.
At his sudden movement and what he was sure she likely saw as a physical assault, she flailed her arms . . . and knocked her glass of wine off the dresser.
His thirty-thousand-dollar-a-bottle Chateau Mouton-Rothschild.
Dammit. What more was this woman going to do to ruin his life and personal possessions?
She was after his brother, and possibly the Raines family fortune. She was a threat to their biggest secret. She’d opened every one of the bottles of precious, nearly priceless wine he kept in the penthouse out of pride and for appearances only. Not to be opened on a whim. And now she’d ruined his carpeting.
Did she have any idea how much the stuff cost? So much, they didn’t charge by the square foot, but by the square inch.
He was really beginning to regret abducting her.
With a mental flick, he flipped on every light in the room so that he no longer stood in shadow and no longer looked like the monster-slash-demented rapist she apparently took him for. When she finally got a clear look at him, the screaming stopped . . . but the open mouth and fear in her eyes didn’t.
Her nostrils flared above his hand, and her chest—her ample, nearly bare, sequin-studded chest—heaved with her rapid breathing.
But it was her pulse that caught Sebastian’s attention. The pounding of her blood in her veins, the staccato beat of her heart ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thumping behind her rib cage.
And she smelled good. Better than good—delicious. Of flowers; a type he couldn’t quite place . . . maybe lilies or tulips, something unusual and not often found in women’s perfumes and body lotions. And beneath that, the underlying scent of citrus. Not from an outward fragrance, but deeper, from within. Something in her blood itself.
He inhaled deeply, feeling his pupils dilate and his gums throb as his fangs descended. Not to mention what was happening below the buckle of his belt.
Attraction to this woman was unacceptable. He might not want her tricking Aidan into a quickie marriage that would give her access to his numerous bank accounts, but that didn’t mean it was all right for Sebastian to ogle her the way he was doing. If his brother was interested in Chloe Lamoreaux—as undesirable a match as she might be—then she was off limits to him. Protecting his brother (even from his own stupidity) was one thing; stealing his brother’s girl (even an unworthy one) was another. And entirely unacceptable.
But that didn’t keep his cock from hardening behind his zipper, or her unique scent from seeping into his pores. It didn’t keep him from envisioning the two of them together. On the extra-wide, custom-made bed only a few feet behind them, with its navy blue, merino wool and thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Naked and writhing with lust.
He imagined peeling her out of her Flames of Hell costume, with its red and orange sequins and the waterfall of even oranger feathers fluttering at her rear. Revealing the rest of her lightly golden skin inch by inch. Laying her down and putting his mouth to her breasts, her smooth stomach, the insides of her quivering thighs.
As though the outfit she wore to dance at Lust didn’t showcase enough of her mouthwatering figure, he’d seen her onstage. He knew that she had a tight, athletic body, with curves in all the right places and ankles that reached her ears when she was adequately motivated.
He pictured her that way, with his body nestled tightly against her, pounding them both into oblivion . . . and a jolt not unlike that of a nine-thousand-volt cattle prod caused his dick to leap, shaking him from head to toe.
Fangs fully engaged now, he slammed the curtain down on such erotic thoughts. This situation was bad enough as it was. The last thing he needed was for her to notice that he was sporting either a giant erection or a set of razor-sharp, non-FX incisors.
And he might have had a shot at getting himself under control in both departments if he didn’t suddenly scent her arousal. There was still a hint of fear—of him and of the situation she suddenly found herself in—but her blood was heating with something more, almost as though his visions of fucking her senseless had permeated her mind, as well.
Which was possible. His kind had the power to instill thoughts in humans; to make them believe they’d seen things differently than they had, or to wipe their minds completely. It was how they survived, how they managed to feed without leaving traumatized victims in their wake.
Just because he’d never successfully transferred his own thoughts or desires to someone before didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. He supposed.
Or perhaps she was equally attracted to him, all on her own. No vampire mojo involved.
He arched a brow. Now, there was an interesting thought.
His gaze skittered down to her chest, wanting to see if her nipples were peaked, but the materials of her costume were too thick to tell. He did, however, notice the tremble of her legs and how she clenched them slightly when she noticed where his attention had wandered.
Because she was frightened . . . or because she was turned on?
Knowing he shouldn’t be toying with her like this—sexually or otherwise—he straightened and chastened himself to focus on the matter at hand.
“I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth now,” he told her in a low voice, “but I need your pr
omise that you won’t scream.”
True, his men had orders to stay well away from the penthouse this evening, and it was unlikely anyone else would hear, no matter what kind of commotion she made, but better to be safe than sorry. Plus, given his excellent vampire hearing and the fact that she’d already burst his eardrums once tonight, he’d prefer not to have to gag her the entire rest of his time with her.
“Do we understand each other?”
Slowly, heavily made-up eyes still wide, she moved her head up and down.
He nodded in return, then just as slowly slid his hand from her mouth, ready to slap it back, if necessary.
But she didn’t scream. She did let her tongue dart out to lick her dry lips, though, an action that sent a flicker of heat straight to his groin.
He bit back a groan—barely—before taking a single step away from her and bending at the waist to retrieve the toppled wineglass. Setting it on the bureau from where it had fallen, he perused her briefly, trying to decide where to begin.
His initial goal has been merely to keep her from running off with Aidan, giving the couple a chance to rethink their desire to tie the knot so quickly. But after discovering that she’d been following him, and her rather odd behavior in his kitchen with his—whimper—once-prized wine collection, he now realized he needed to do more than simply keep her locked up, away from Aidan. He needed to figure out who she was and what she was up to.
Before he could say anything, however, she beat him to the punch.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to snoop, I was just looking for your cat.”
Which was both the truth and a lie. Yes, she’d been looking for him—or rather, his feline form—after he’d raced from the kitchen in order to shift out of eyeshot.
But she’d also been snooping, from the moment she awoke on his sofa. And when she’d thought the only witness to her nosiness was a silent, disinterested house cat.
But what had she been looking for? Proof of something, obviously—but what?
He winged one brow upward, letting her know he didn’t believe her. At least not entirely.
She licked her lips again, nervously this time, but that didn’t keep another stab of lust from grabbing him by the balls.
“I would have called for him, but I didn’t know his name,” she added, pausing to let him fill in the blank. He didn’t. “What is his name?” she finally asked flat-out.
“Sebastian,” he answered blithely, amused when her eyes widened in surprise.
“You named your cat after yourself?”
“Something like that,” he murmured.
Then, before she could pelt him with more questions, he grasped her elbow and steered her away from the closet, toward the bedroom door. Once they were far enough down the hall that she wouldn’t notice, he mentally extinguished the lights behind them.
Without a word, he dragged her to the kitchen and situated her in front of the countertop that was littered with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of wasted wine. The very thought of how much he’d paid for some of the bottles and how long he’d been saving others made his blood pressure soar. His only saving grace, he supposed, was that he kept the most valuable bottles in his collection tucked safely away in a commercial storage facility on the other side of town.
“Would you like to explain this?” he asked, feeling like a father taking a child to task for coloring on the walls.
She had the grace to look chagrined, blood rushing to the apples of her cheeks to turn them an attractive shade of pink. Reaching behind her, she tugged at the feathered tail sprouting out of her ass, drawing his attention to the firm, round, sequin-covered twin globes. His blood pressure continued to climb, but this time for an entirely different reason.
“I, um . . . was really thirsty.”
He raised a brow, letting her know he didn’t believe that for a Las Vegas minute.
“A glass of water would have quenched your thirst,” he told her flatly. “This is . . .” Overkill. A travesty. A grapeflavored nightmare. “Something else. And you were looking for something. What?”
Her eyes widened at that, and she immediately began shaking her head. “I wasn’t looking for anything,” she declared in a high, nearly falsetto voice that belayed the truth of her words.
“You were. You said as much while you were violating my wine collection.”
If possible, her eyes flew even wider and the splashes of color at her cheeks drained away, leaving her pale with shock. “How do you know that? I thought I was alone,” she added in a low murmur, almost as though she didn’t think he would hear.
But of course, he did hear. He could hear her heart beating in her chest and the breaths sloughing in and out of her lungs.
He couldn’t very well tell her that he’d heard her ongoing monologue because he’d been perched on the counter the entire time, though. That sort of thing tended to go over badly with humans. Let her believe the entire penthouse was wired, and that he’d been both watching and listening to her every move since she’d awakened.
“What are you looking for?” he asked in a low voice.
“Nothing,” she denied quickly with a sharp, negative move of her head. “I wasn’t looking for anything.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, darkened. He didn’t make a habit of using his powers on defenseless humans. To wipe their memories of having seen him in certain situations, yes, but not to delve around in their brains and search for information. That sort of thing wasn’t usually necessary in this day and age, and he preferred to conduct business fairly, knowing that at the end of the day, any profits he made or lost were due to his entrepreneurial skills and not the cloak of preternatural hypnosis.
But there were times, such as this one, when a little otherworldly woo-woo was necessary. And considering his brother’s eagerness to rush this woman down the aisle, as well as the fact that he’d kidnapped her and wasn’t sure how long he could keep her here before she started putting up a fuss or he started cruising toward a felony he couldn’t talk his way out of, the sooner he found out what she was truly up to, the better.
Wrapping his hands over her shoulders, he ignored the spark of awareness that sizzled at the touch of bare flesh to bare flesh. He caught her gaze and held it, staring deeply into her eyes. Deeply.
“Chloe,” he murmured softly, “tell me what you’re looking for.”
Her brow wrinkled slightly, even as her violet eyes began to dilate, grow foggy. “Chloe?” she said in a strange, faraway tone. “But I’m not . . .”
And then she blinked, her expression went blank, and she sagged in his arms.
Two Pair
Either Chloe Lamoreaux was extremely suggestible or . . . Or he didn’t know what else. He’d never had someone pass out on him just from a small bit of mental pressure pushed in their direction.
With the unconscious showgirl in his arms, Sebastian stalked down the hall, back to his bedroom, and draped her across the bed, atop the thick navy coverlet. Stepping back, he stared down at her, considering.
Perhaps his powers had grown over the years without frequent use and without his realizing it. Which didn’t explain why the random women he fed from on a regular basis reacted exactly as they should from his gentle nudges to allow him to take their necks and the mental erasings that followed to remove their memories of ever having met him.
Or perhaps he’d pushed too hard. If she was tired, ill, maybe even worn out from his first blast of power when he’d knocked her out to get her upstairs . . . Any of these things could be a factor in her current response, he supposed.
None of them kept him from admiring her half-naked body, though. Still encased in fishnet stockings and the highshine, overly-sequined costume he was beginning to realize was a little over the top, even for Lust.
The problem was, he wouldn’t mind seeing her out of it. He couldn’t imagine that the skintight outfit, made out of those materials (if they could even be called “materials” instead of
“hardware”) was comfortable.
Crossing to the closet she’d been about to snoop through when he returned to human form and caught her off guard, he flicked on the light and studied his options. Despite the number of women he had in and out of the penthouse on a regular basis, few of them left personal items behind. He made sure of it.
He wasn’t exactly a T-shirt and jeans type of guy, so his “casual” options were limited. Deciding on a plain white undershirt and pair of dark maroon pajama bottoms, he stalked back to the bed. He knew they would likely swamp her, but the more coverage he could offer, the better. Frankly, she was lucky he didn’t dig out his ski-wear and dress her head to toe in a thick down snowsuit.
Bending close, he started to strip her. Not the finest idea he’d ever had, considering the singe to his fingertips every time they touched. If he were smart, he’d wait until she woke—or wake her intentionally—and let her dress herself.
But he suspected that if he offered her that option, she would turn it down, preferring to remain in the ridiculous—and no doubt binding—costume rather than climb into something from his personal wardrobe. So he would take that particular decision away from her and just get the job done. But not without extreme personal distress.
The one-piece outfit fit her like a second skin, which meant that in order to peel it from her unconscious body, he had to dig his fingers in between the bodice and the full globes of her breasts. His nostrils flared at the feel of that soft, silken skin against his knuckles. If only the damn thing had a zipper. But it didn’t—he’d checked.
Feeling his blood heat, pooling uninvited in the vee of his legs and the gums around his aching, fully distended fangs, he turned his head, doing his best to avoid the full blast of her lushly naked form. Perhaps doing this by feel wasn’t the best idea, either, but it beat the alternative all to hell.