Jack paced back and forth down the length of the tiny room. She cast a few furtive glances his way, not wanting to be caught admiring his lean, graceful stride or his broad shoulders.
"Is there any way I can convince you to quit?" he asked.
She lifted her chin. "I'm not a quitter."
"Are you sure about that?" he muttered under his breath as he continued to pace.
Was he referring to their relationship? Lara's cheeks heated with indignation. He was a two-hundred-year-old vampire, for Pete's sake. Was she supposed to be happy about that?
"I'm not a quitter, either." He removed his leather jacket and draped it on the back of her desk chair. "I'm going to find Apollo before you end up doing something foolish."
"Oh, thanks for the vote of confidence." She glared at him.
He glared back as he sat down. "You're plenty tough for a mortal, but you're still no match for a vampire."
She looked away. "Exactly. I shouldn't be matched with a vampire."
"Let's get started." His voice sounded strained.
"Fine by me." She turned back to him and clasped her hands in her lap. "What do I need to do?"
"Nothing. I do all the work, and you just try to be… receptive to me."
She gripped her hands tighter. "Okay."
He leaned forward, his elbows braced on his thighs, and studied her intently. The gold flecks in his eyes seemed to grow until the entire iris was gold and gleaming.
Lara looked away, uncomfortable with the fierce energy radiating from his stare. The room seemed awfully hot. Her skin began to tingle all over. Especially her breasts. The tingling sensation took a sudden turn south. She pressed her thighs together. She was suddenly desperate to feel a man inside her. And not just any man. Jack.
"Do you feel that?" he whispered.
She gulped. His eyes were actually glowing now. "What are you doing?"
"Turning up the power. This is how a vampire lures people in."
She stiffened. "So you can bite them?"
"I haven't bitten a woman since 1987, when synthetic blood was introduced."
"How considerate of you." She lifted her chin and gazed nonchalantly across the room. "I guess you're a bit rusty, 'cause I'm not feeling much of anything."
"Maybe you're just insensitive."
She shot him an annoyed look.
His mouth twitched. "You are feeling it. Your heart is pounding. Your temperature has increased. I can feel the heat coming off you like—"
"All right." She clenched her teeth. "Is there a point to this? I thought we were going to concentrate on hearing voices."
"I'm trying to assess your capabilities. Your sense of touch seems to be working fine. I think it's only your hearing that's off-kilter."
A blast of cold air nearly knocked Lara on her back. With a shiver, she righted herself.
"You felt that." He watched her closely.
"Yes." The cold air swirled around her, sweeping icy tendrils across her brow. "You're trying to invade my mind?"
He nodded. "Normally, I would be in by now."
She wrinkled her nose at him. "You don't make people squawk and do the chicken dance, do you?"
Now he gave her an annoyed look. "Do you hear anything at all?"
She shut her eyes and focused. There was a buzzing behind her ears that sounded like radio static. "Are you saying something now?"
"Yes."
She wondered what. She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut, frowning with all the concentration she could muster. The buzzing sounded louder and more masculine, more like Jack, but she couldn't distinguish any individual words.
With a sigh, she opened her eyes. "This isn't working. All I'm getting from you is a buzz."
His mouth curled up. "Was it good for you?"
"No." She scowled at him. "It's like having a pesky mosquito in my head."
"Damned bloodsuckers. I hate them."
"Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?"
He smiled slowly and leaned closer to her. "I need to touch you. Now."
She gulped. "I… but…"
"On your head," he explained, still smiling. "I can make a stronger connection that way."
"Oh." She recalled how he had touched Megan's head in order to release her suppressed memories. "I guess that will be all right."
Her heart speeded up when he sat on the bed beside her. Icy currents swirled around her, brushing against her skin and raising goose bumps. She shivered.
He rested a hand on top of her hand. "Concentrate."
She closed her eyes, and the buzzing returned. It was deep and masculine now. It ricocheted from one ear to the other, a jumble of words that she couldn't isolate. The harder she tried, the more her temples throbbed.
"Can you hear me?" he whispered.
She shook her head.
His fingers tightened their grip, digging into her scalp. A sudden burst of pain stabbed like an icy dagger between her eyes. With a gasp, she fell back and broke contact.
"Ow." She rubbed her brow. "What the hell was that?"
"I used too much power. I'm sorry."
"It's just a headache." She massaged her throbbing temples. "It'll be worth it if this helps keep me alive."
"I would do anything to keep you alive."
"That makes two of us." She scooted back on the bed so she could rest her back against the wall. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, willing the pain in her head to subside.
I'm still in love with you.
Her eyes flew open. "We shouldn't talk about that."
"I didn't say anything."
"But…" She could have sworn she'd heard him speak. Had it been wishful thinking? She caught her breath when she realized what had happened.
She'd heard his thoughts. He was still in love with her! Before she could think of a response, her mind filled with static. The throbbing increased, then she heard a few words.
… hear me?
"I heard the end of that." She gave him a wary look. "Can you hear my thoughts?"
He shook his head slightly. "Not very well. I mostly feel your pain."
"Oh, sorry." Though she was greatly relieved that he couldn't read her mind. She sure didn't want him to know that she still loved him. Don't even think that. Think about pink elephants. She winced as a damned elephant galloped across her brain.
At least the cold air had dissipated. That had to mean that Jack had stopped trying to communicate with her telepathically.
She motioned toward her desk. "I have some aspirin in my handbag."
Apparently, he could take a hint. He jumped up and passed the bag to her. "Do you need anything to drink?"
"Yes. There's a vending machine down the hall."
"I'll be right back." He left the room.
"Aargh." Lara collapsed on the bed. His incredible thought kept echoing in her aching head. I'm still in love with you. What was she going to do? The most wonderful man on earth loved her, but he was a vampire.
Her reclining position made her head hurt even worse, so she sat back up. She retrieved the aspirin bottle from her handbag and struggled with the childproof cap. Dammit. She'd be able to do this if her hands weren't shaking. I'm still in love with you.
Jack slipped back into her room, carrying a diet cola and bottled water. "I didn't know which one you'd want."
The world was a bizarre place when the most considerate man she'd ever met was a vampire. "I'll take the water. Thanks." She popped two aspirin in her mouth and drank.
He set the cola on her desk, then sat in the chair.
Lara rested her head against the wall. Talk about something safe. "So… do vampires ever get sick?"
"It hurts like hell if we're deprived of blood," he answered quietly. "We can be poisoned, burned, or wounded, but we usually heal during our death-sleep."
"Death-sleep?" She grimaced, then stopped because it hurt too much. "You're actually dead when you sleep?"
He gave her a wry look. "That's why we'r
e called the Undead."
She shuddered. No wonder he'd never returned her calls during the day. He wasn't being rude, just dead. As far as excuses went, it was pretty good, but she hated to think of him as dead. "Are you fully alive now?"
His mouth thinned with annoyance. "You've heard my heartbeat. I'm as alive as any mortal right now. And, in case you've forgotten, I'm fully functional."
She looked away to keep from glancing at his jeans. She'd felt an erection there several times. Time to change the subject. "So… are you really the son of Casanova?"
His frown deepened. "Yes."
She'd fallen for a real Casanova. "Why don't you use the Casanova name?"
He shifted in his chair. "Are you feeling any better now?"
"Not really." She wondered why he'd changed the subject. "You didn't answer—" She stopped when he suddenly removed one of her athletic shoes. "What are you doing?"
He pulled off the other shoe, then removed her socks. "You're in pain. I want to help you relax." He scooted the chair forward so he could rest her feet in his lap.
She stifled a moan when his thumbs pressed into the soles of her feet. It felt so good. Her feet had been sore from wandering all over campus to check the residence halls for Apollo's flyer. "Have you ever had trouble before? I mean, invading someone's mind?"
"No. You're the only one." He tugged gently on her toes. "I think it has something to do with the car accident you were in."
She winced. "You know about that?"
He nodded and turned his attention to her other foot. "I read a newspaper article about it online. I'm very sorry for the suffering you endured."
"Thanks." Her current suffering was actually declining. Jack's foot massage was doing wonders. He could
do more than your feet. She chased that errant thought away. Thank God he wasn't reading her mind right now. "I was in a coma for a week. They didn't think I'd make it."
Jack continued the massage. "You're a fighter. I admire that about you."
He admired her? That felt even better than the foot massage. And the massage was damned good. "The accident changed my life. It nearly killed me, but in a weird way, it was the best thing that could have happened to me."
His hands stilled. "How can that be?"
She gave him a wry smile. "It ruined my mother's plans for world domination. She wanted me to be Miss Louisiana, then Miss USA, and then of course, Miss Universe."
He resumed the massage. "That's not what you wanted?"
"I didn't know any better. As soon as I could walk, my mother was entering me in pageants. At the age of four, I won the prestigious title of Little Miss Mudbug."
He grimaced. "Mudbug?"
"It's a crawdad." When Jack still looked confused, she waved a hand in dismissal. "It doesn't matter. Suffice it to say, my mom is crazy. She's fifty-two years old and still entering pageants. If she can't find one to enter, she invents one, like Miss NOLA Plus Size. She'll actually wear a sash and tiara to go shopping."
"How… odd." Jack slipped a hand into her loose cargo pants and massaged her calf.
Lara sighed with pleasure. Her legs had been sore ever since the FBI had tried to kill her with marathon exercise sessions. She wondered why she was telling Jack her life story, but he was such a good listener, not to mention massage therapist, that she didn't want to stop.
"Mom was so excited when I won Miss Teen Louisiana. But after fourteen years of entering pageants, I wanted to quit. Mom would go ballistic every time I even mentioned quitting. So I made sure my pageant career was ruined."
Jack switched to her other calf. "What did you do?"
"When I was nineteen, I was a finalist in the Miss Louisiana competition. They did the part where they ask you a question onstage. It's usually something like, What change would you like to see in the world? and the usual answer is, 'World peace.»
Jack smiled. "What did you say?"
"That I wanted to increase the use of capital punishment. I thought it would be great fun to bring the whole community together for a nice, old-fashioned hanging."
Jack chuckled. "Naughty girl."
Lara grinned. "You should have seen the judges' faces. My mother actually screamed. Obviously, I placed fifth out of the five finalists. My mother was hysterical. She insisted it was too embarrassing to be seen at the hotel. So we drove home that night."
Jack's hands grew still. "Is that when it happened?"
Lara nodded. "It was dark. And we were so busy arguing, we didn't see the truck." She closed her eyes, thankful she couldn't remember the actual accident.
The bed jiggled, and she opened her eyes.
Jack was settling on the bed beside her. "It must have been terrifying."
She nodded. "Mom had multiple fractures. I broke an arm. And I took a bad blow to the head."
"I'm so sorry." Jack stroked her hair that now covered the scars.
Lara's eyes misted with tears. "The first thing I heard when I came out of the coma was my mother talking to my dad. She said thank God it was my head that was damaged and not my face."
Jack sucked in a sharp breath. "Cara mia, that is terrible."
"I knew right then that I could never enter another pageant. I wanted to use my head and not my face." Lara blinked back the tears. "Unfortunately, my head wasn't working too well. I couldn't remember how to read and write."
Jack leaned closer. "You had to learn all over again?"
She nodded. "LaToya was sharing the hospital room with me. That's how we met. She'd been working at a convenience store when an armed robber came in. She took a bullet to the shoulder. We were already in physical therapy together, so we decided to exercise our minds together, too. Her reading skills weren't so hot, but they were a lot better than mine, and it made her feel good to help me. And she said if I could work my ass off, then so could she."
Jack smiled. "That's how you became best friends."
"Yes. We worked together every day, and after a few months, we were reading Nancy Drew books to each other and solving the mysteries. Then we progressed to harder and harder books, till finally, we decided we wanted to be detectives and catch the bad guys. Make the world a better place. So here we are today."
"You're amazing," Jack whispered. "I've never met a woman as amazing as you." He took her hand and kissed it.
Her skin tingled where his lips had touched. He turned her hand over and kissed her palm. The tingles spread from her hand up her arm to her breasts.
When he lifted his gaze and met hers, his eyes were brown and warm with love. No gleaming gold flecks, she realized. No vampire power being used to lure her in. Only love.
And she wanted it so badly.
His gaze lowered to her mouth. If she didn't stop him now, she'd never be able to resist.
She pulled her hand from his grasp and scooted to the edge of the bed. "Well, I think we did enough for the night. My head's too sore to do any more."
"I understand." Jack stood and slowly put his jacket back on. "I'm honored that you would share your story with me, but I have to wonder why. Maybe you didn't realize it, but it makes me want to be with you more than ever. Did you mean to encourage me?"
She gulped. "I–I think we could be friends. Maybe."
"You could be friends with a vampire?"
She looked down and plucked at the chenille bedspread. "I don't want to be… judgmental. You don't seem like a very bad vampire."
"Gee, thanks."
Her cheeks grew warm. "It occurred to me that you might have been attacked and changed against your will." She glanced at him with a hopeful look. "Is that what happened?" Please tell me you didn't want to be a monster.
He dragged a hand through his hair. "I'd rather not talk about it, but yes. I was attacked." He shifted his weight. "Shall we continue tomorrow night?"
He'd changed the subject. Maybe he was trying to spare her some gruesome details. After all, she assumed he must have been murdered. Sorta. She wasn't quite sure how vampires were made. But she
was fairly certain it had not been at all pleasant for him. Poor Jack. "Yes. Let's meet tomorrow night. I think we made some progress."
He smiled. "Yes, I think we did." He disappeared.
Lara sighed. The man was far too tempting. But far too different. Did she really want to be a part of his world? Did she want a boyfriend who was dead during the day and could live forever without getting older? Where would that leave her? As far as she could tell, she had two options with Jack. She could grow older and end up alone, forgotten, and heartbroken. Or she could stay with him forever as a vampire.
She shuddered. How could she do that? How could she be a police detective if she was a vampire? How could she give up daylight and good food and chocolate? How could she tell her family? How could she have a family?
No, she was going to have to be sensible about this. Jack would make an interesting friend. But no more than that.
She would have to love him at a distance.
CHAPTER 20
Jack arrived at Romatech in a good mood. Lara had heard his psychic voice, and she knew that he still loved her. The meeting had started off a bit awkward, but by the end of it, she'd allowed him to touch her and comfort her. She'd shared important moments from her past. She'd offered her friendship. That had to mean she was willing to trust him. In time, their relationship could grow into something deeper. She was such an amazing woman. So strong, brave, clever, and beautiful. There was no doubt in his mind that Lara was the one for him.
But she was still in danger. His happy mood evaporated as he strode toward the MacKay security office. A month had gone by with nothing to show for it but one botched attempt after another to find Apollo. Jack's muscles tensed and his hands curled into fists. When it came to his work as an investigator, he was not accustomed to failure.
He grudgingly admitted that so far they had failed to find Casimir. But the wily Malcontent leader stayed constantly on the move. This Apollo had a base. He was staying put. It was ridiculous that they couldn't locate the bastard.
Jack entered the office and found Phil sitting at the desk, studying something on the computer. "Where is everybody?"
Phil didn't even blink at the anger in Jack's voice. "I guess your meeting didn't go well?"
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