At least, she thought they were.
The ride to Richart’s home was a comfortable one. Instead of worrying about what would or wouldn’t happen once they reached it, Melanie asked Bastien what exactly had happened on the night he had kidnapped Sarah and ended up laughing herself silly when he told the tale.
She was sure it hadn’t been funny at the time, but Sarah really had done her darnedest to thwart him and escape. Bastien had been so shocked and baffled by her actions. Melanie had to applaud him for his patience. And for not holding a grudge. He made the whole kidnapping sound like a Three Stooges skit.
They were both still chuckling when he parked in Richart’s driveway, got out, and guided her up to the front door.
Upon stepping inside, Melanie was surprised to find Richart waiting for them.
“Finally!” he said. “I forgot to give you the code for the alarm system and your phone is off.”
Bastien stared at him. “You trust me with your security code?”
“No. I’ll change it tomorrow. Right now, I don’t care. I’m eager to get back to Jenna. So, here.” He handed Bastien a sticky note. “Make yourselves at home.”
As soon as the tacky paper stuck to Bastien’s finger, Richart disappeared.
Bastien looked at Melanie as silence surrounded them.
Seconds later, they were in each other’s arms, bodies straining against each other, lips melding in a searing kiss, sticky note sticking to who-knew-what.
Melanie rose up onto her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck and clung tightly.
Bastien ravaged her lips, his kiss fierce and demanding, his hands . . .
Anticipation seared her as he slid his hands over her back and up her sides, his fingers grazing the sides of her breasts.
He raised his head. When his eyes met hers, they glowed brighter than she had ever seen them. “Wait,” he murmured, voice hoarse.
Melanie dropped back onto her heels, wanting to scream.
“No, it isn’t what you’re thinking.”
He must have felt the twinge of disappointment and frustration that had struck her. She had assumed he was going to try to dissuade her one last time.
“I don’t want to stop. I just want to slow down a little.” He shook his head. “I’ve been fantasizing about this for too long. I don’t want to rush it. I want to savor it.”
Melanie’s heart raced as she nodded. “Savoring sounds good.”
He smiled. Such a tender smile. His face relaxed, looking youthful and utterly irresistible.
Reaching up, she touched his stubbled cheek.
Who else ever saw him this way?
Bastien captured her lips once more. When his tongue delivered a tantalizing stroke, she parted her lips and drew him in.
Some of the urgency may have been tempered, but there was no less passion. Fire heated Melanie’s blood as he drew her close, pressed every inch of her front to every inch of his.
Bastien’s body heated as Melanie buried her hands in his hair, her fingers grazing his scalp. He wanted to go slow. He really did. But he could feel everything she felt.
When he slid one hand up to caress her breast, he felt the sharp arousal that darted through her. When he drew a circle around her tight nipple with his thumb, then pinched the sensitive peak, he felt the shock of electricity that shook her and shortened her breath. When he trailed his lips down her throat over her shirt and closed them over her nipple through the soft cotton cloth . . .
Bastien groaned. There were definite perks to his gift. And being able to feel exactly what pleased her had to be the best one.
Melanie moaned. Bastien’s mouth was so warm and wet and he knew exactly how to use it to rekindle the desperate need that had claimed her earlier. Her breath shortened. Sliding her leg up the outside of his thigh beneath his coat, she hooked her knee over his hip and ground her core against the hard bulge behind his zipper.
His hand tightened on her breast. His lips sucked harder. He gripped her hip with his free hand, then cupped her ass and urged her to rock against him. “Wrap your legs around me.”
Melanie didn’t hesitate. Jumping up, she wrapped both legs around him.
He turned and pressed her up against the nearest wall. “Perhaps I was mistaken,” he said, eyes blazing down at her as he thrust against her. “Fast and hard has its merits, too.”
Melanie nodded, pleasure consuming her despite the material that separated them. “Fast and hard is good.”
Their surroundings blurred. A second later, they were in the bedroom Melanie had used earlier. Bastien kicked the door closed. “Take off my coat,” he ordered.
Melanie hurried to peel it off his broad shoulders.
“Now my shirt.” He lowered her feet to the floor.
She was already on it, hands shaking with need as he nibbled her throat and continued to fondle and tease her breasts.
Warm, tan skin stretched taut over muscle drew her heated gaze and demanded her touch. Leaning forward, she drew her tongue across one masculine nipple.
She felt a tug, looked down and saw bare skin from her waist up. No sweater. No shirt. No bra. “How did you do that?”
“I’m immortal.”
“Cool.”
“If you liked that . . .”
Lifting her, he crossed to the bed and laid her atop the covers.
He blurred as Melanie felt another tug. She looked down . . . and her boots, socks, pants, belt, and panties were all gone.
She grinned. “I like this. Now do you.”
Laughing, he blurred for a split second, then stood naked before her.
Melanie laughed with delight and pulled him down atop her.
Bastien captured her lips once more, consuming them as their limbs tangled and teased. Flames scorched her with every touch. Every stroke of his tongue. Every caress of his fingers as they slid down her stomach to brush her clitoris.
She gasped.
“You’re already wet for me.”
She nodded, head falling back.
Bastien parted her legs with a knee and settled his lower body between them. She was so beautiful. So passionate. As eager to please him as he was to please her. She slipped a hand between them and curled her delicate fingers around his heavy erection.
He hissed in a breath as she squeezed and stroked, inciting a riot within him even as he did the same to her. When she guided him to her entrance, he forced out a gravelly protest.
“I want to taste you first.”
“Taste me later. I want you inside me.”
He wasted no time, plunging in to the hilt, groaning at the feel of her tight, moist warmth.
She caught her breath. Moaned. Writhed beneath him as he had imagined her doing too many times to count since he had met her.
“So good,” she murmured, gripping his ass and urging him on as he withdrew and thrust again and again.
Melanie gazed up at him. Bastien’s hair tumbled down and caressed her already sensitive flesh as he moved against her. Those eyes . . . She couldn’t look away from them as he reached between them and stroked her with his fingers in time with his thrusts.
A climax rippled through her, stealing her breath, splintering her thoughts. Bastien stiffened above her and shouted her name.
Sheer ecstasy.
As the last tingles faded, he lowered his forehead to hers. Melanie wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close, loving the feel of his big, muscled body on hers, though he supported the bulk of his weight with his forearms.
As his breathing evened, Bastien titled his head, touched his lips to hers in a profoundly tender kiss, then drew back and smiled down at her.
He was so beautiful. So perfect.
And she loved to see him smile.
She loved to make him smile.
She grinned up at him.
His eyes narrowed with amusement-laced suspicion. “What are you thinking?”
“I was thinking immortal speed isn’t just a plus on the battlefield. You
stripped me naked in only a couple of seconds.”
“I can do more than that in a couple of seconds.”
“Really?” She couldn’t imagine what.
He winked, then blurred.
A second climax drove through her, catching her totally off guard. She thought she may have even screamed with it, gripping the sheets with fists as her body convulsed over and over again.
When she opened her eyes, Bastien was grinning down at her as if he had never moved.
Melanie stared up at him in amazement. She didn’t even know what he had done—it had happened so fast—but her heart raced madly and . . . she didn’t think she had ever come so hard in her life.
“What the hell was that?” she panted.
He laughed. “Another benefit of being an immortal.”
That was one hell of a benefit.
He left her long enough to turn the overhead light off, then hastened back to bed. Reaching down, he pulled the covers over them both and drew her close.
Quiet enfolded them as they lay in the dark. Weariness snuck up on Melanie and weighed her down. Though she was tempted to try anyway, she thought she would have been too tired to do anything other than lie there like a limp noodle if they made love again.
Almost dying was apparently exhausting . . . and continued to mess with her head in slow moments like this.
What must Bastien have thought earlier tonight when she had basically voiced a living will?
“Do you think I’m paranoid?” she asked softly.
“No.” He seemed as disinclined to move as she was. She didn’t think she had ever seen him so relaxed and content.
“You don’t think I overreacted when I told you I want to be transformed if anything else happens to me?”
“No. I think you were being smart and practical. Shit happens in this business. Even in the hallowed halls of the network.”
“Yes, but most of the shit that happens at the network is instigated by you.”
He chuckled, the rare sound of it trickling through her and relaxing her like wine. “True.” Another moment passed. “Times are changing though. You might consider making your wishes known to Seth and Chris. Someone at the network needs to know in case I’m not around and something foul goes down.”
“Linda knows.”
“Good. She seems like good people.”
Melanie smiled. “She is.” She was pretty damn courageous, too. Linda had been scared as hell when Vince, Cliff, and Joe had taken up residence in the network, but she had sucked it up and worked with them until she had lost that fear.
Unlike Dr. Whetsman and certain other colleagues.
Melanie guided her mind away from the job. She didn’t want to think of work when she had Bastien snuggled up with her. All she wanted to think about was how good it felt to have his large, warm, muscled form pressed against hers.
Well, that and . . .
“Go ahead. Ask me,” he murmured.
“Ask you what?”
“The question I imagine you’ve been wanting to ask ever since the meeting.”
“Are you sure you aren’t telepathic?”
He grunted. “I wish I were. It would take all of the guesswork out of dealing with people.”
“True.”
“So go ahead and ask me.”
“Who was the woman?”
“The one Ewen caught me draining?”
Melanie nodded as lethargy stole upon her. She shared Tanner’s belief that Bastien wouldn’t kill anyone who hadn’t done something seriously wrong. So what had the woman done? What had she been to him?
“She was a madam . . . of sorts. There were a lot of homeless children and poor children in what the ton would think of as the seedier parts of London. Always hungry. Working at a ridiculously young age to help put food in their mouths and on the family’s table.”
“I’m guessing there were no child labor laws back then.”
“No. Though a few fought for them.” He sighed. “Pedophiles are not new in our society. They were present in my youth and long before that. This particular woman catered to that sort of clientele, stealing, conning, or buying children and selling them into prostitution.”
Melanie didn’t understand people like that. People who seemed to have no conscience. “How did you find out about her?”
“There was a boy. He had been earning just enough to stay alive working as a chimney sweep when he stumbled upon a temporary resting place I had chosen after I stayed out too late to make it back to the apartment Blaise and I used to share. Blaise was dead then, recently destroyed by Roland and I was . . . lost. First my sister. Then my best friend. I had had to give up the rest of my family when I was transformed. So I had no one.”
Melanie gave him a squeeze.
“Anyway, this boy stumbled upon my hiding place and . . . He looked so damned skinny and hungry. And he was such a proud boy. I offered him a job, gave him some busy work so he wouldn’t think he was a charity case. You might say he was my first Second.” He shrugged. “I really just wanted to give him a warm place to stay, three squares a day. And his chatter filled the silence.” He sighed. “I don’t know. There might have been a little ‘I could have had a son like him if I hadn’t been turned’ mixed in there, too. It doesn’t really matter because he didn’t come home one day. And by the time I found him he was dead.”
“The woman . . . ?”
“Mistook him for fair game and sold him to the man who killed him.”
“So you . . .”
“Killed them both . . . and everyone associated with the woman. Her employees. Her other customers. I saved her for last. Unfortunately, Ewen came along just as I finished draining her.”
“He must not have been a telepath or he would have seen the reason you killed her.”
“I don’t know what his gift was. I only know he didn’t give me a chance to explain and nearly destroyed me before I finally managed to destroy him. I didn’t have a ready supply of blood then, so it took me three days to recover.”
“You should tell the others.”
“Do you really think knowing their friend died because he made an error in judgment will make his loss less painful or me more popular?”
“I suppose not.” She yawned.
Bastien brushed his hand over her hair. “It’s been a long night. See if you can’t get some rest.”
Melanie gave him a quick kiss and closed her eyes.
If he said anything else, she didn’t hear it. Sleep claimed her too quickly.
As Chris promised, a network employee delivered two thermal vision scopes—one for Bastien and one for Richart—and one pair of thermal vision goggles for Sheldon just before dusk.
Bastien liked the scope. So did Richart when he teleported home soon after. It fit in their pockets, and they could take it out and peer through it without altering the vision in both eyes. Call him old-fashioned, but he didn’t want to completely abandon his super-sharp immortal vision in favor of high-tech whatever.
Bastien took Melanie home once the sun set. She had a small place out in the country that reminded him of the tiny frame house Sarah had been renting when Roland had met her.
He suspected she was as obsessively neat as the immortals because the clutter he found there was minute at best. Mail scattered on the coffee table. A couple of dishes soaking in the kitchen sink. A jacket tossed on a chair.
Unable to resist, Bastien followed her into the bathroom and made love with her in the shower. It was so good it terrified him. With every touch, every look, every minute they spent together, he could feel the bond between them strengthening.
While she dressed for work, he meandered around and snooped freely. There were only two framed photographs in her small home. The couple pictured in them, their arms around each other in one and looped around Melanie in the other, must have been her parents. They looked happy in a way Bastien’s aristocratic parents never had.
Melanie’s furniture was mismatched. Some, he tho
ught, had probably belonged to her parents. Some were purchases of her own. The atmosphere was warm. Homey. Welcoming. He wanted to sprawl on her beat-up couch, prop his feet on the coffee table, and just soak it and her in.
But duty called them both. So he took her to the network, left her with a kiss, and met Richart at UNC.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?” Bastien looked over at Richart as the Frenchman held his thermal scope up to his right eye and scanned UNC’s campus for the fiftieth time from their position on the roof of Davis Library. “I’m doing what?”
“Mooning.”
Bastien snorted. “Last time I checked, my ass was still in my pants.”
“Not the drop your drawers and bend over mooning. The sighing as you fantasize about Melanie mooning.”
“Bollocks.”
“You’re infatuated with her. At the very least.”
Bastien thought about denying it, but . . . “Can you blame me?”
“No. But your distraction with her last night may have contributed to your not noticing the soldiers earlier.”
“So what was your excuse?”
He sighed. “I was distracted by Jenna.” He gave Bastien a rueful smile. “We’re a pair, are we not? Two hundred years old and behaving like we’re each caught up in a first crush.”
Bastien shrugged. “For me it sort of is. I’ve never felt like this before.”
Richart stared at him. “Never?”
“No time, really. When I wasn’t fighting other vampires who had succumbed entirely to the madness and avoiding fights with you immortals, I was hunting Roland.”
“I didn’t realize you fought vampires when you lived among them.”
“Hard to avoid. Sometimes they did the craziest shit. And I don’t mean crazy wild. I mean crazy demented. I knew some of them weren’t right. It just took me awhile to realize that they all eventually weren’t right.”
Richart grunted and looked at his watch. “Time to meet Stuart.”
“Already?” Maybe he had been mooning. He hadn’t noticed the passage of time. Bastien took out his cell phone and dialed as promised.
“Yeah?” Tanner answered.
“We’re heading over to meet Stuart.”
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