Enemy Mine

by Karin Harlow

  “This place is hopping,” Cross said, his voice loud and clear in Nikko’s earpiece.

  “It’s crawling with half of the FBI’s most wanted,” Cassidy added.

  “Any sign of Guerrero?”

  “Give us a minute, Cruz,” Cassidy snapped. Haltering his urge to get inside, Nikko paced back and forth along the sidewalk as Cross and Cassidy scouted the club and got a lock on Selena. Nikko’s gaze never wavered from the club entrance as he paced, trying to restrain his impulse to blow by the bouncers and find Selena himself, and then … He wondered if he could do that mind-meld thing Cross had done to the bouncers.

  Nikko crossed the street, striding straight toward the studded, double brass doors and the two goons standing sentry. Selena’s scent intensified. It hit him so hard, his blood raged through his veins. His heart pounded in his ears. He lifted his nose and inhaled.

  She was not alone.

  His focus shifted.

  A heavy male scent swirled possessively around hers. Testosterone-laden pheromones tangled with her estrogen. Selena Guerrero had come a long way in eight years. Red clouded his vision. The L.O.S.T. operative in him told him he was overreacting, that he was putting his team in peril by going in now. The grieving father and broken lover in him told him the only way to heal was to destroy that which had destroyed him. The arrogant vampire blood that raged within told him he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

  Nikko strode toward the door. The goons stepped into his path. Nikko shook his head in warning. When they didn’t back off, he shoved them aside as if they were two-year-olds and grabbed the curved brass door handle so hard he felt the screws loosen.

  When he stepped across the threshold, Nikko felt as if he had stepped into another realm. One not of the human world. Energy sparked dark and dangerous. Pungent scents swirled around him. Hearts beat at different tempos—some languorous, others quick and jittery, while those of the humans beat a steady, rich cadence. The multistory club was dark, with just enough strategic lighting to cast a sensual glow. The air was thick with sultry body heat, both human and … not. The tension in Nikko’s body amplified. Selena’s scent had intensified to critical mass. She was close. Close enough to touch.

  Two goons approached him. Another two came up fast behind them. Nikko stood his ground, refusing to back down but determined not to make a scene.

  “Tell Miss de la Roja, Johnny is here to see her,” Nikko said as they circled him. Their arrogance wafted around him. He stared down the biggest one of the four. “Now.”

  The bouncer turned on his heel and strode deep onto the dance floor.

  “He’s with us,” Cross said from behind Nikko.

  The remaining three bouncers looked surprised, but nodded and left them alone.

  “You okay, Cruz?” Cassidy asked, coming around to stand in front of him.

  Nikko shook his head. “I’m having trouble controlling the primal parts of me.”

  “Your body is accepting the vampire blood injected into you, Cruz,” Cross said. “Your human will is weak compared to your vampire will. The vampire in you intensifies the primal human. It can be euphoric when both have a common agenda. It’s hell when they polarize. Especially when the blood comes from a dominant donor.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m going to hazard a guess and say your blood, or most of it, came from an ancient, one who as a human had self-control issues. It’s not uncommon for a host body to assume some or all of the donor’s characteristics. Good and bad.”

  Cassidy snorted. “That explains a lot.” She looked up at Cross and winked. Despite the tenseness of their situation, he cracked a smile.

  “You need to find a way to control your temper, and your impulses, Cruz, or it’ll get one of us killed. And I’m not feeling much like dying again.”

  “Nikko,” Cassidy said. “Let me make contact with Guerrero.”

  Nikko inhaled deep into his lungs, then slowly exhaled. “I can do this. I know Selena and what buttons to push. I’ll get what we came for.”

  “Be careful she doesn’t push your buttons, Nikko,” Cassidy warned.

  “She’s dead to me,” he said, and wondered if they believed him.

  “We’ll be along the perimeter. Keep us updated with your position and what’s going on around you,” Cassidy instructed before she walked off hand in hand with Cross.

  Nikko closed his eyes and inhaled. Selena was close. Her scent swirled all around him. He turned toward the dance floor and opened his eyes. His heart shuddered to a stop. Stunned, he could only stare, not believing his eyes.

  She stood across the dance floor at the rail of the sweeping stairway that rounded three floors up, staring straight at him. She was alive. A living, breathing entity. No more than twenty feet from where he stood. And she looked—he swallowed hard, trying to ease the rapid staccato of his heartbeat—fucking amazing. She was all woman; not one vestige of the girl he had fallen in love with remained. Blood coursed through him. Hot, thick, potent.

  She wasn’t alone. A brawny cubano stood behind her, his lips pressed against the curve of her throat. His hands slipped around her waist, his big fingers splayed across the curve of her hips. He pulled her back against him.

  Rage flared white-hot in Nikko’s belly. Selena’s gaze never wavered, even as her lover’s lips traveled down her throat. Her eyes closed halfway and her lips parted. Her nostrils flared and her nipples tightened beneath the translucent white sheath dress she wore. It hugged her curves like a second skin.

  Nikko’s gaze dropped from her tits to her taut belly, then lower to the smooth swell of her pussy. He snarled, his rage intensifying, his vision blurring red. Slowly his gaze rose back to hers. A small smile curved her lips, and if lightning had struck him, Nikko would have felt no more of an electric jolt. He wanted her with an intensity that burned.

  As much as he wanted her, he also realized she was playing him. Did she think that, after what she’d done, he had a jealous bone in his body? Her lover’s hand cupped her possessively. His reaction to another man’s touching her infuriated him. He didn’t care who touched her!

  “I’m going to fuck you tonight,” Nikko mouthed. As the words escaped, his cock thickened to painful. By all that was holy, he was going to fuck her.

  Her big, feline eyes widened at his audacious statement. He smiled slowly. Yeah, if anyone was going to fuck Selena Guerrero tonight, it was going to be him. And then he was going to demand she tell him where that cask was, whom she worked for, and what the hell she had injected him with.

  Nikko’s legs propelled him forward, through the wild mass of slick, undulating bodies. As if he were Moses, the crowd parted. He stopped a foot from her. She stood above him on the catwalk. His gaze swept up from her perfectly manicured toes, peeking out of what he guessed were ridiculously expensive designer stilettos, up her smooth calves to her knees, then higher to her thighs the material did nothing to hide, only accentuated. Yeah, she had changed. The Selena he’d fallen in love with would never have dressed so provocatively. She sure as hell would not have allowed a man to grope her in public as she was allowing the gangster behind her to do now.

  Nikko’s nostrils flared. He could smell her hot, spicy sex. He watched in fascination as her body lengthened and tightened before his eyes. Emotions he had long ago forgotten surfaced and pounded in his chest. God, how he had loved to touch her soft skin. Feel her small hand in his. Hear her laugh at his corny jokes. She’d brought out the best he had to give. He’d loved her with every part of him. His chest tightened until he could barely breathe. Her eyes deepened to onyx, just as they always did before they made love. … Nikko swallowed hard and allowed the anger to surface. It had all been a lie! How dare she stand before him seducing him as another man touched her! His heart demanded retribution, but his body wanted something else entirely. His cock ached so painfully he knew of only one way to ease it.

  “Cruz,” Cassidy sharply said in his earpiece. “Don’t do it
!”

  He pulled the button mic from his shirt.

  “Damn it!” she yelled. “We need that information!”

  He took the small earpiece out and slid it in his trouser pocket. He’d get the information. But he wanted something else first.

  He maneuvered his way up the crowded stairway, stepped behind Selena and, subtly to bystanders but anything but to the recipient, nudged her Latin lothario down the stairway. A handful of men emerged from the shadows, ready to take Nikko to task. He stared each one down.

  Just as her lover had done, Nikko slid his arm around Selena’s waist. All Nikko, he spun her around and pulled her hard against his chest. His arm clamped around her slender waist; she didn’t resist. Just the opposite. She moved into him, as if she had some right to him.

  “Johnny,” she breathed. “You found me.” Running her hands up his chest, standing on her toes, Selena pressed intimately against him. He stiffened as warning bells sounded. What the hell was her game? Why all sweet and sexy when they both knew what kind of woman she really was? Her tits drilled into his chest, her hips into his hard-on. He resisted her lure. And the way her curves pressed tormentingly into his skin, lighting him on fire.

  “Johnny’s dead,” he ground out. “You killed him.” He felt her heart stutter a beat.

  He could hear the fast rush of her blood as it pumped frantically through her body. His own heart thudded wildly in his chest. His hands twitched. Here she was, in his arms, when all this time he’d thought he had killed her. He didn’t know how to process any of it—laugh, cry, or tear her apart. The anger was easier to deal with. It kept him from doing something stupid.

  Her big eyes stared back at him in an odd sense of wonder. She didn’t argue or defend herself, just took his rage as if she knew she had it coming. Of course she did!

  She’d murdered his daughter! She had it coming and then some.

  Her lover shoved his way back up the stairway toward them. Nikko pushed Selena behind his back and faced the murderous man. “La señorita no te quieres,” he said.

  The woman does not want you. The man’s eyes blazed furiously.

  “Armadeo,” Selena said, stepping from behind Nikko. “I have a bit of unexpected business to attend to.”

  “I’m your only business tonight.” Armadeo snapped his fingers and pointed to the spot next to him. “You, here, now.”

  Selena laughed low, the sound seductive. “Oh, Madeo, now you push too far. I choose who I conduct business with and when, not the other way around.” Her gaze hardened. “Now, agree to my terms or we are concluded for the evening.”

  His face contorted in rage, but he said, “Five minutes.”

  “You will not regret it,” Selena said, and strode away from them both.

  Nikko went after her. Catching up to Selena, he grabbed her wrist. Once again, the contact was electric. He gritted his teeth, afraid he might not be able to control what he wanted to do to her before he got the answers he’d come for. “Somewhere private,” he growled, releasing her. Contact only instigated his bloodlust.

  She calmly contemplated his order with hooded eyes, then turned and led him to a door behind the DJ booth. As she closed it behind them, she pressed a hidden button beside the doorjamb. A door slid open on the adjacent wall, leading to a stairway. Selena preceded him. Warily, he followed her to the third floor, not once taking his eyes off the subtle sway of her hips. But it was her scent that drew him like a lovesick teenager.

  Jesus. Her fucking scent. A siren’s call. It clamped unrelentingly around his head and his cock. As they topped the stairwell, she opened a door to a small vestibule from which another door opened into a large octagonal shaped anteroom.

  “My office,” she said, extending her hand to a single-panel black door at the other end.

  Nikko was stretched as tight as he could go without snapping. His human part and the vampire blood wanted the same thing: primal satisfaction. He followed Selena into the office and slammed the door shut behind them. Startled, Selena whirled around and faced him.

  Her stormy dark eyes stared up at him in shock, and something else. She was in as much turmoil as he. But she was not afraid of him. And that pissed him off. She should be. “Why didn’t you die, damn it!”

  “Johnny,” she said, her voice clogged with emotion.

  “Don’t fucking Johnny me! You killed my daughter!”

  “No,” she gasped. “I—”

  “Don’t lie to me.” He yanked her to him, wanting to ease his pain by hurting her. His lips swooped down on hers, gnashing teeth against teeth. And she took it. Her scent intensified with her body heat. “Bitch,” he hissed, and bit her bottom lip. The taste of her blood incited his raging libido to terrifying heights. He ripped her dress down to her waist. Her smooth caramel-colored breasts popped out, the dark areolas pebbled, her nipples so hard they looked like little beads. Voraciously, Nikko laved one, then sucked it against the roof of his mouth. Selena gasped. Grasping his shoulders, she arched into him.

  Her response only added fuel to his fury. What was her game? Did she think all was forgiven? He growled, pushing her against the edge of her desk. “Why did you let me think I killed you?” he demanded, shaking her. At her failure to respond, he clamped both hands around her neck. “I hated myself for what I did to you. I hated that I killed you!” His thumbs rubbed up and down her throat. “I loved you!” he shouted, tightening his grip. “You destroyed it.”

  Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. God! He wanted the pain to end! But he would not be like her again and kill the thing he loved above all others. And God help him, he still loved her.

  “Johnny,” she rasped, placing her hands on his.

  “Don’t,” he roughly said. “Don’t try to justify any of it.” His hands slid from her neck to her breasts. He cupped them tightly before he slid his hands to her waist. He yanked her against him, so that her legs straddled his thigh. Her dark eyes sparkled and her full, red lips parted expectantly. Her nostrils flared, her instincts dead to rights. He was the predator, she the prey. Her heart beat like a thousand drums against his chest. He did not have to like her to want her. He did not have to forgive her either. His blood scorched his veins. Every cell burned for her.

  He could take her, right this moment, and she would not stop him. He slid a hand up the curve of her back to her shoulders and into her scalp. He fisted a hank of her hair and pulled her head back so that her body arched into him, her tantalizing breasts smashed against him, her long, smooth neck fully exposed.

  “You have created a monster, Selena,” he breathed as he lowered his lips to her jugular. “A monster with an insatiable appetite for you.”

  He laved his teeth down the thick artery, drawing blood. Selena trembled in his arms, but she did not fight him. Indeed, her skin warmed and her sex scent blossomed. His eyes widened in surprise. The taste of her was like a shot of adrenaline. He pressed his lips to the bite and took more.

  Lightning flashed in his head, his heart, his dick. Nikko closed his eyes and experienced a sublimity he could not describe. Her blood infused him with power, energy, and a hunger so ravenous he feared he would lose all control.

  “You no longer have control over me, Johnny,” Selena breathlessly said.

  He laughed softly against her sultry skin. “I have control over your body.” He thumbed a hard nipple. Her back arched to breaking. He pressed his thigh more firmly between her thighs and rubbed. She moaned. “You’re wet for me.”

  She dug her nails into his shoulders. Nikko closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten. He wanted her on her back and him buried inside her to the root. But he knew if he went there, he’d be back for more—

  He licked the wounds he had inflicted, the vampire wanting more blood, the human fighting hard to resist. She shivered and moaned. He cupped her bare breasts, his dick so damn hard for her he was on the verge of giving them both what they wanted.

  “What were you doing in Kyrgyzstan?” he demanded against her thr
oat.

  “Visiting relatives,” she breathlessly answered.

  “Liar.” He nipped her neck and squeezed her breasts just short of hurting her.

  She moaned, arching against him.

  “What did you inject me with?”

  “I didn’t inject you with anything,” she rasped.

  Nikko yanked her hard against his erection and stared her straight in the eye. “Tell me what I want to know, or so help me God, Selena, I’m going to fuck the answers out of you.”

  Her lush lips parted. The tip of her tongue licked her top lip. Every ounce of blood in his body shot straight to his dick. “I dare you to try.”

  It took every bit of willpower Nikko possessed not to throw her across her desk and take what he wanted from her. With more than a little regret, he released her and stepped back. “I’m not here to play games with you, Selena. I came for answers. I’m not leaving without them.”

  She pulled the torn fabric of her dress up and hopped off the edge of her desk. “Then make yourself at home—you’re going to be here awhile.”

  He grabbed her arm as she moved past him and pulled her around to face him. “Really, Selena? Is that how it’s going to be? You fuck up my life and go on your merry way, I miraculously come back, and you can’t give me the fucking time of day?”

  She yanked her arm from his grasp. “I’ve moved on, Johnny. You should try it.”

  He clenched his jaw. “I have. Now answer me. Why were you in Kyrgyzstan? How are you affiliated with Roberto Balderama, and what the hell did you inject me with?”

  Selena let out a long breath. “I was in Kyrgyzstan on business that is none of your business. Señor Balderama was a dear friend of my late mother, we keep in touch. And what I injected you with?” She shrugged. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you, and that would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?”

  “Why were you following the trailer?”

  She strode over to the door and opened it. “I’ve told you all I’m going to tell you. I have work to do, please leave.”