Jack’s fork slipped from his fingers.
Len quirked an eyebrow and studied Alex’s cool gray-green eyes and his casual pose. Wow. You had to admire the vamp for his balls. But then, he was never one to back down from an enemy.
“Uh, do you mean personally or professionally, Alex?” Jack looked oddly nervous.
Lenny’s curiosity spiked. “Do you know Lyra personally?” He had to ask.
“Sort of,” Jack said cryptically.
“He’s been to some of her parties, right Jack?” Alex’s tone was moderate, even friendly. But Jack looked even more nervous.
“Look, Alex. I came here to apologize for what happened last night.” He cast a quick I-wish-you-weren’t-here glance at Len. “I know I was totally out of line and I hope—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Alex interrupted. “We were both fucked up. My concern isn’t about Lyra’s propensity to play sex games with mortals. My concern is her covert threat to Stoked and her overt threats to my company and Caro.”
“Jesus!” exclaimed Len. “What the hell did I miss last night?”
“You don’t need to know the details—the party was typical Lyra fare. But before I took my drunken ass away from her malevolent presence, she told me she planned to bring me up before the Immortal Council.”
“Why the hell would she do that?”
“Same old, same old. She’s adverse to mortals and immortals working together to make money. Sex, drugs and evil mind control are all well and good apparently. Legitimate business is still a no-no.”
“You know, I kind of wish you would have told me about your issues with the CEO of our chief competition.” Jack had replaced his worried look with one of disgruntlement.
Lenny expelled a snort of laughter. “Alex has issues with every CEO of an immortal company. Not all of them bad issues…but issues nevertheless.”
“True,” Alex said. “But none of the other CEOs I know are as powerful or as evil as Lyra Murdoch. And her barely veiled threat to my bloodmate is a gauntlet I can’t ignore.”
“What the hell did she say?” Fear pricked at the back of Len’s neck. If Alex was this worried about Lyra, then yeah, he was gonna get worried too.
“Let’s just say Caro’s not going to leave my presence until this issue is resolved.”
“Jesus, Alex. You have to do better than that if Lyra’s threat is real. You have to grant her complete protection. She’s leaving for Cleveland soon. You’ll have to convince her to renew all of your bonds, grant her some real powers for defense—”
Lenny clamped his mouth shut when he saw Alex look beyond his shoulder, his eyes sparkling silver. Len turned and saw Caro standing just outside the bathroom door. Her body language told him she’d heard quite a bit. Voices apparently carried well in the cavernous room. God. Damn.
She walked softly across the floor and stopped a few feet from his stool.
“Jeez, Lenny,” she said, keeping her eyes solely on him. “I know satyrs are notoriously capricious. But you sure are whistling a different tune about Alex today than the one you were whistling about him yesterday. Marriage? Renewed blood bonds? Wow.” Hurt bled through her sarcasm and Lenny wanted to cry.
“Caro, take it easy.” Alex’s swift move around the counter had Caro taking a step back. “I should have included you on this conversation from the beginning. But I didn’t want to frighten—”
“Oh yes, we wouldn’t want to frighten the poor little defenseless mortal female.”
Len saw sudden understanding dawn in her expression. Something bad, from the look of it.
“My God. This is why you took me to your crypt last night, isn’t it?”
Len bit his lip. Yep. Bad. All the bads were there in her voice. Hurt, anger, sadness.
“It wasn’t because of your undying love or your eternal need for my company,” she continued. “It was to protect me from your disgruntled business enemies!”
Alex was starting to look as bad as Caro sounded. “Caro, you know it’s more complicated than—”
“No, I don’t know it, damn it! That’s always been the trouble between us. I never know when you’re telling me the truth. Even when I can read your mind, I don’t know.” A tear slipped down her cheek and she swiped it way. “I don’t know who Lyra Murdoch is or why she’s angry with you. But I’m not your bloodmate…not really…so she won’t be able to use me to get to you. Right? I won’t be under your control or anyone else’s!” Her voice cracked and her face crumpled for a horrible second before quickly smoothing out into a hard, cold mask. Uncurling her fisted fingers, she calmly said, “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I’ve got a business to take care of. I’m going to Cleveland. I’ll be back next week to work on the account.” She turned on her heel and headed for the door.
Recognizing she was holding off a big-time meltdown, Len started to follow her but Alex stopped him with a fierce look and then sprinted after her.
Len looked over at Jack—who spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
Caro was in the elevator, trying to get the clanky doors to close and knowing she was being stupid because, yeah, she was barefoot, barely dressed and trying to flee a vampire who owned her soul. But every cell in her body was telling her to run.
She expelled a strangled moan of frustration when she saw him. “Goddamn it, Alex,” she whispered heatedly as he easily pushed open the gate and stepped in beside her. “I don’t want to see you right now, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to think about—”
He grabbed her shoulders and put his mouth over hers, kissing her like he was drowning and she was the air he desperately sought. She eased into his body for a moment, empathizing with his urgent need, but after a long, soul-sucking moment she forced herself to pull back, her breasts heaving, her mind aching as she tried to sever her thoughts from his.
“I had to kiss you goodbye, princess.” His tone was teasing but his eyes were sad.
“I can’t do this, Alex.” She turned away from him, clasping the metal bars of the elevator’s cage with trembling fingers.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Lyra before, but I was so fucked up last night, and we were so happy this morning—”
“No, it’s not just that. It’s the whole thing—there’s too much history between us. The sex was a mistake. Pretending we can be together was a mistake. If we can’t maintain a purely professional relationship then I’ll have to bail on this job. And I won’t see you again. Ever.”
He moved into her space with a sudden bold move, backing her into the corner of the small elevator, blocking out the dim light with his body and his dark eyes.
“Do you honestly believe that, princess?” He voice was soft and full of menace. “That what’s between us is pretend? Something we can just forget?” He moved in closer and she felt a thrum of dark energy pass from his body into hers. “You’re mine. Forever. Your body has my mark. Do you know what that means?”
She nodded, her mouth going dry as he lifted her hand to his mouth.
“It means my enemies are your enemies. I fight for your life, the same way I fight for my own life.” He kissed her palm, the base of her thumb. He blew lightly on her wrist and her tattoo burned, his breath like a hot metal brand on her sensitive skin. “And it means I can make you beg for a good, hard fucking. Anytime. Any place. Any way I want you.”
She struggled then, rage overcoming her anxiety. She kneed him, kicked him, struck out with her free hand, crying out her anger and frustration. He held her tight, immobilizing her, his strength and reflexes gravely outmatching her passionate efforts.
She stilled her body and when he kissed her, like she knew he would, she bit down hard on his lip, drawing forth his rich, dark blood.
He grunted. “Damn! That fucking hurt!”
“Good!”
A silver shadow passed through his eyes. He brought her wrist to his mouth and suckled her tattoo, smearing her marked flesh with his blood.
She arched.
A sharp breath hissed between her lips. With a shout of agony, she climaxed, pleasure torpedoing through her body, sucking all her emotions into a tight ball of ecstasy that blasted through her nervous system and then left her limp and dangling against Alex’s body.
She sobbed. Felt him still suckling, felt more pleasure build in her pussy, her breasts. His canines lengthened, his eyes went black. She felt a prick, a slight piercing. Her clit swelled and throbbed—
“No! Please, Alex! I’m begging you, no, no…” She was weeping in earnest now, her mind as overcome as her body. “You promised, you promised!”
He dropped her wrist, fell to his knees and covered his head, as if the blows she’d tried to land earlier were finally connecting and he was protecting himself from her attack.
She grabbed the bars of the elevator to keep from falling. Tried to control her body-racking sobs.
He rolled onto his side in a fetal position, clenching his stomach with his arms, his hair shrouding his face.
“Leave me,” he gasped. When his body contorted she could feel his pain. Nauseating, excruciating, slicing deep through his gut.
“Oh God. Alex…” She bent down, her hand hovering over the black silk of his hair.
“Now!” His roar reverberated through the elevator shaft, shaking the cables, shattering the light bulb. A red emergency light flickered on in the hallway.
Caro backed out of the elevator, brushing thin shards of glass from her hair and shoulders. Her eyes seized on the door to the stairwell. She forced her body to move through the door and down the dank stairway.
The door at the base of the stairs exited into an alley. She took a step, stumbled against a Dumpster and sat on the dirty asphalt, weeping silent tears.
Lenny found her there several minutes later.
She looked up into his dear, sweet, worried face. “Take me home,” she whispered as he gathered her into his arms.
Chapter Eleven
Caro was staring at her morning cup of coffee when her phone rang.
Alex. Her head was swimming with the residue of too much crying and a too-hard sleep. Should she answer? Yeah, otherwise he’d keep trying. Or worse, come here to Cleveland to see her in person.
“Hello?” Her voice rasped. She cleared her throat.
“Are you okay?” The sound of his voice made her want to weep again.
“Mm. Yeah. I think so. How about you?”
“Not so good, actually.”
“I’m sorry.”
He made a disgusted sound. “You’re sorry? Jesus, Caro, don’t be. I’m the one who’s sorry. I deserve to be flayed for the way I treated you in that elevator.”
“Alex—”
“I’m sorry, princess. Truly, genuinely, deeply. Can you forgive me? Can we start over?”
She rubbed her forehead with a shaky hand. “Oh Alex.”
“I know. This is like déjà vu from five years ago and you don’t want to have this conversation again.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I figured you probably felt that way, so I just wanted to let you know that there’s no pressure. I just want to do business with you. I mean…I won’t be putting any pressure on you for a relationship or anything like that.” He sighed. “Fuck. Why is this so hard to say? I won’t expect things from you on a personal level. I’d like to keep everything strictly professional.”
“Umm…” She was surprised—no, make that completely shocked—by what he’d just said.
“I’m not saying this very well, am I? Look, I just don’t want to repeat any of the mistakes I made with you in the past. I’m letting you call the shots. I love you and I want to be with you but I know that’s probably not possible for us right now.”
“Alex, I don’t know what to say…”
“That’s my point. If you don’t know what to say, you shouldn’t have to say anything. You’re not ready to come back to me yet. So. I look forward to working with you on a business level but that’s all there’s going to be right now. A blurring of the lines would just make us miserable.
“Yeah, I agree.” Was she actually hearing him say all this?
“I talked to Sherene and Jack and Lenny and things went surprisingly well. We’ve got a tentative plan for how to deal with Lyra and some great ideas for how to proceed with the first product launch. And I need to let you know something up front…” He paused for a long moment. “Sherene and I—we’re going to try to keep things going with our relationship. Friendship. Um, you know, stay friends and feed when we need to…” He cleared his throat.
“Oh.”
“And I told her my worries about working with you—she knows you’re my bloodmate, of course. And she agreed that if things get uncomfortable, she’ll do the supervision of events planning. I’ll just fade into the background.”
“Fade into the background…” Caro didn’t seem to be able to complete a sentence.
“Yeah, so you’ll have to let us know if things aren’t going satisfactorily.” He paused, as if trying to find words. “Satisfactorily….shit, I sound like an ass, don’t I? What I mean is we’re going to have to work very closely together on occasion and if I really start to piss you off because of stuff from the past, or stuff in the present for that matter, let me know. You really deserve this account, and I don’t want you to bow out because of me.”
“Umm. Okay, Alex. Thanks, I guess. This is a lot to think about.”
“I’ve spent the entire time since you left thinking about it. I want you to be happy and successful, princess. I don’t want to get in your way.”
Caro was suddenly suspicious. “Hey, did you talk to Len about this?”
“No, just about business. Not about this…us. Why?”
“Well, I thought maybe he put you up to it.”
“No, it’s something that I really want to do—nobody coerced me.” His soft laughter had a tinge of sadness. He sounded completely human, like he’d put his bad-ass vamp side somewhere else for a while. “I’m hoping you’ll give me a break some day after you realize I’m not such a bad guy, after all. And actually, Lenny did warn me that if I fucked with you again he’d twist my balls off.”
Caro exhaled a breath of laughter. “Len the bad-ass satyr.”
“He can be pretty scary when it comes to protecting you.”
“I know. That’s why I can never find a decent boyfriend.”
Alex snorted in disbelief. “Now I know that can’t be true.”
“You’d be surprised.”
There was a tense little pause.
“Well, I’d better go.” Alex’s tone was tentative. “You’re coming for the marketing division’s meetings next week?”
“Yes.”
“Good, I’ll see you then.”
“Okay.”
“Take care, princess.”
“You too.”
After the line disconnected, Caro stared at the familiar furnishings in her kitchen, feeling oddly lost. She tried to analyze her emotions but couldn’t get a handle on them. Alex, for once, had acted like a complete grown-up—professional, kind, mature. He’d said all the right things. So why did she feel like he’d just broken up with her?
Oh Lord. Did she want to go back to him—all the way back to him? Sex mate, bloodmate, life mate, the whole damn deal?
No. She’d struggled for five years to become independent. And now she had her dream. A successful business. Friends who respected her for herself, not for her connection to Alex.
And now she had Alex’s respect. As a friend. As a business equal.
She should be jumping up and down, pumping her fist in the air, shouting “Success!”
Instead, she swiped a tear off her cheek and stared morosely into her cold cup of coffee.
* * * * *
Mike pumped Len’s hand and then dropped it to take Caro’s hand in both of his beefy ones. “You’re here for the meeting this afternoon? Great. Wish I would have known you guys were coming in this morning, we could have had lunch or
something.” His pale hazel eyes were fixed on Caro’s cleavage and Len was pretty sure he knew what ol’ Mike meant by “or something”.
“Yeah,” said Len distractedly as his gaze shifted once more to Merrell. Merrell with his warm mocha skin, hot espresso eyes and A-bomb sex appeal.
Human males like Mike were reputed to think about sex once a minute. Well, a satyr never stopped thinking about sex. And a big, beefcake vamp was Len’s very favorite way to let his mind go.
It had been a long week away from Chicago.
He cleared his throat when Merrell caught him with those sultry eyes and held on to him. “Caro, I’ll see if Merrell can help me get those photocopies made for the meeting…”
Caro smiled at him. “Sure Len, take your time.”
Hey—did she just wink at Merrell? Nah.
Mike solicitously placed an arm on Caro’s elbow. “Caro, would you like to join me in my office? I have a few questions for you and I wanted to go over some information I found for you last week.”
“Okay,” Caro agreed. “I have a few things I’d like to run by you as well.”
“Great. Let’s get started.”
Len watched Mike lead Caro down the hall. Then he let Merrell lead him in the opposite direction.
When Merrell gently pushed him through a discreet door adjacent to his desk, Len thought it was a broom closet. But then he saw office supplies. Merrell shut the door and carefully turned the lock. As he walked toward him with that now very familiar Mona Lisa smile on his lips, Len felt blood rush to his groin.
“I paged Gerald to come cover the desk for my break,” Merrell said. “We have fifteen minutes.”
With the incredible speed full-blooded vamps were known for, Merrell abruptly had him against a shelving unit and in a lip lock—a mind-blowing, cock-popping, mouth-bruising kiss. He felt dizzy. He clutched his silk-clad shoulders and held on when those long, cool fingers dove under his shirt, down his waistband, into his briefs.
He wrenched his mouth away and gasped, “Okay, but let’s go easy…I don’t want to get interrupted again.” He groaned as Merrell palmed the head of his cock.
Merrell’s laugh was full of anticipation. “I’ll be quiet if you will.” He made quick work of belt buckles and waistbands. And—ah God—then Len’s hot, thrusting cock was in those cool, white vampire hands. Merrell dropped to his knees. Len moaned when Merrell darted his tongue around the base of his shaft.
Party Vamps Page 17