He was across the room in a burst of speed that was probably too fast for even a vampire to see. Wrapping his hand tightly around Val’s throat, he pinned him to the wall and roared, “That wasn’t your choice to make, you meddling son of a bitch! When will you ever learn?”
“It wasn’t like that, man! We did it because we love you,” Seb shouted at his back, trying to pull him off Val. But Nick wasn’t budging. From the cold look in Val’s dark eyes, he knew exactly what his big brother had been thinking. And, God help him, Nick refused to head down that same dead-end road.
“If you cared anything about me at all,” he grated around his rough breaths, releasing his hold on Val as he took a step back, “then you would have done as I asked and protected the woman who I pray to God is going to be my wife.”
He didn’t wait around to hear whatever Val had to say for himself. He simply turned and started making his way down the stairs, knowing he could grab everything he needed from his office.
“Where the hell are you going?” Seb demanded from midway down the stairs when Nick came out of his office ten minutes later, fully dressed. He held a leather duffel bag in one hand and his car keys in the other as he headed for the front door. “You need rest,” Seb told him. “Don’t be a jackass, Nick. You’ve got to be running on fumes.”
Refusing to believe that Lainey had given up on him, he growled, “I’ll rest when I’ve gotten her back.” But with his hand on the doorknob, he stopped as a horrible thought occurred to him. Struggling not to panic, he cut a deadly look toward Val, who had appeared in the doorway to the kitchen with his hand clasped around a cold beer. “Did you cloud her mind?” Nick demanded, his voice raw. “Did you make her forget me?”
Val’s jaw hardened, but Seb’s gritty laughter drew Nick’s attention back to him. “Val told her he could cloud her,” he said. “He claimed it would make it easier for her to move on.”
Nick’s hand tightened on the doorknob with so much force that it dented. “And?”
Though he still looked worried as hell about him, Seb’s blue eyes glittered with humor and admiration. “And she threatened to send his balls into his throat if he tried,” he admitted in a wry drawl. “It was pretty impressive. For such a little thing, she’s damned fearless.”
That’s exactly what Nick was counting on as he slammed the door behind him, determined to find Lainey as quickly as possible.
But it ended up taking a hell of a lot longer than he’d expected. By the time Nick finally tracked Lainey down, almost a week had passed since they’d escaped from the bunker. As he stared up at the softly glowing bedroom window in the rustic farmhouse situated in eastern Alabama, the air was warm and thick, redolent with the scent of apple trees and a summer garden. He’d never been to Alabama before, but he loved what he’d seen of it so far.
He loved the sight of the woman silhouetted in that upstairs bedroom window even more.
Because her grandmother’s third husband’s name—she’d apparently had eight of them—had been used on all the public records for the farm, Nick had had a hell of a time tracking it down. He’d gone to Lainey’s condo in San Diego first, but there’d been no sign of her there. He’d even checked in at the bookstore where she worked, but no one had heard from her since she’d left town for her trip up to Moonlight Bay. He’d checked Ryan’s house in L.A. next, but she hadn’t been there either.
Long, frustrating, eviscerating days of searching had followed. Even now he was terrified that she’d changed her mind about wanting him.
Unwilling to wait a second longer to see her, Nick reached for the rungs of the ivy trellis that snaked up the side of the house, hoping the thing was strong enough to hold him. The fall wouldn’t kill him, but sprawled on his ass in her grandmother’s flower garden was hardly the impression he was hoping to make tonight.
If he weren’t so desperate to see her, he would have just knocked on the front door. But he didn’t think he could do the whole “meet her grandmother” thing until he and Lainey had had the chance to talk things over. God only knew there was a lot he needed to say.
“Nick!” Lainey gasped the moment he started through the open window. Her fair skin was flushed with color as she stared at him from across the room, her breathing rapid. Then she crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.
“Son of a bitch,” Nick grunted, rushing over to scoop her off the hardwood floor. She was completely boneless in his arms, out for the count in her cute white cotton nightgown. He found a wry smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
This wasn’t the first time he’d held Lainey Maxwell’s unconscious body in his arms—but when she woke up, Nick was determined to do whatever it took to keep her there.
* * ** * *
Lainey was lost in that painful moment of dreaming when you know you’re about to wake up but don’t want to. In this dream world, Nick had finally come for her, and she wasn’t ready to open her eyes, abandoning the fantasy to face reality.
She’d often heard people say that you could run, but you could never hide. She’d heard the words used in reference to things like fate and justice and karma. But she’d never thought about how true they were. Had never realized they could apply to something as huge and overwhelming as pain...and love.
It seemed like madness, pure and simple. The crazy-assed idea that she could have fallen in love with a man—a vampire—she’d known for little longer than a snap. But it was true. And now that she no longer had him—that almost the entire breadth of America separated them—she felt more pain than she’d believed was physically possible.
It was a different kind of pain from the grief she felt over the loss of her brother. More desperate—because she knew Nick was still out there, living his life without her. She was dark inside. Cold. Alone, even when she wasn’t. She hadn’t known emotion could hurt like this. Like a physical thing inside that pulsed and contracted and sliced until you wanted to cut it out with a knife.
Still refusing to open her eyes, she pulled in a deep breath and almost cried out when Nick’s warm, mouthwatering scent filled her head. Could it possibly be real? Could he really be there with her?
Cracking her eyes open, she took a quick peek and nearly choked as her heart shot into her throat when she realized she was lying across his lap, cradled in his arms. “Nick?”
“Did you pass out because you’re afraid of me?” he rasped, his dark, intense gaze shadowed with concern.
She couldn’t help but laugh as she shook her head. “Of course I’m not afraid of you, you dolt. I’m just so freaking happy to see you! I’ve missed you like crazy.”
“Then we can talk after,” he said in a low voice, already working open the buttons that ran down the front of her nightgown. “Right now I just need to get inside you. I need to fuck you, Lainey. Badly.”
“No, wait!” As she sat up, she saw that he was sitting on the little chair in front of her dressing table. He was still working on the tiny row of buttons that ran down her bodice, and she grabbed his thick wrist as he reached the last one, waiting for him to look at her. When he finally lifted that hungry, smoldering gaze from her breasts to her face, she asked, “You’re not...you’re not here to cloud my mind, are you?”
“No.” With a tender look in his beautiful blue eyes, he lifted his hand and gently tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “I wouldn’t do that to you, sweetheart.”
“But Val said—”
“I know.” His lips twitched with a smile. “Seb told me you threatened to send Val’s balls into his throat if he tried.”
Sounding more than a little fierce, she said, “I would have, too. I didn’t want anyone messing with my memories of you.”
“Why?” His tone was rough, his gaze deep and measuring.
She swallowed, fighting back the tears. “Because they were the best memories of my life.”
His arm tightened around her back. “Mine, too, Lainey.”
Fighting hard to hold back her tears, she searched his go
rgeous face, trying to read his expression. Recalling the painful reason she’d left, she said, “I can’t even begin to describe how incredible it is to see you, but why...why are you here, Nick?”
“We’ll get to that,” he grated, the words rough with impatience. “But right now I’m about to have you on the nearest horizontal surface I can find. If you want it to be the bed, then you’d better get your ass on it. Now.”
“But we—”
With an arresting expression that was somehow as affectionate as it was aggressive, he growled, “Shut up, Lainey. All I want to hear from you is ‘Harder, Nick.’” His voice dropped to a husky, provocative whisper. “‘Deeper, Nick.’”
Oh...wow. All he had to do was look at her, and her body started melting for him, going liquid and hot and needy.
“And feel free to scream,” he added with an impossibly sexy smirk, reaching under the hem of her gown and ripping her flimsy lace panties off her. “I love it when you do that.”
A second later, he had two big fingers shoved deep inside her, stretching her tight sheath, and she gasped, “My God!”
His mouth curled with a wicked smile. “That’s acceptable, too.”
She was snorting with laughter as he rose to his feet, carrying her in his arms, and tossed her into the middle of the mattress, then quickly lost his shirt and jeans. But as he started to come down over her, wearing nothing but his tight black boxers, she pressed her hands to his chest, gazing up at him through a glistening sheen of tears. “Please, Nick,” she whispered. “I need to know what’s happening.”
With a heartfelt groan, he rolled to his back beside her and shoved both hands back through his hair. “Okay,” he said, and she could tell that he was trying to dredge up enough patience to do this because it was clear from the impressive bulge in his shorts what he’d prefer to be doing. “Where do you want to start?”
Moving onto her side, Lainey propped herself on an elbow, unable to get over the fact that he was lying there beside her. “What happened that night?” she asked. “After you had your brothers take me away?”
With his gaze focused on the ceiling, he said, “I hunted down every last one of those sadistic bastards. They’re all dead.”
Her brows lifted. “You didn’t keep any for questioning?” she asked, knowing how important it was that he find out who had been helping the wolves.
“No, I didn’t question them.” He turned his head toward her, locking her in that deep, dark blue. “They knew who you were, Lainey. I couldn’t risk one of them getting away and coming after you.”
“Won’t you be in trouble with your...bosses?”
Nick snorted. “They can try. But the ones I work for know better than to piss me off.”
She made a small sound of relief. “Good.”
Reaching out, he caught one of her curls, twining it around his finger as he asked, “Are you going to tell me what happened with my brothers?”
“Val said I was the last thing you needed,” she whispered, unable to hide her worry in the husky words. Not to mention her pain. “He said that if I stayed, you would turn your back on them and give up eternity for me. That you would...suffer because of me.”
“Val is full of bullshit,” he snarled, his dark eyes flashing with anger. “You never should have listened to him.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t die if we were together?” she asked, almost too afraid to hope. Yeah, they would still have some serious...issues. For one, she’d age...and he wouldn’t. But in that moment, she didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was having as much time with him as she could, and she was greedy as hell for it.
He got that closed look on his face that was impossible to read and let go of her hair before he sat up at the edge of the bed. With his back to her, he said, “You know vampires can’t commit suicide, Lainey.”
Frustrated by that half-assed answer, she sat up in the middle of the bed and said, “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it, Nick. Val said that vampires who pledge their lives to a single human will often choose to feed from only that one person, and by doing so, they begin to age and grow old so that they can die with their...loved one.”
Moving to his feet, he started to pace across the hardwood floor. The way his powerful muscles shifted and flexed beneath his tight skin was the most magnificent thing she’d ever seen. “So you just left?” he ground out, cutting her a sharp look from the corner of his eye. “Without even talking to me about it?”
Using her fingertips to wipe away the tears spilling over her cheeks, she said, “I’m not...I’m not saying that you love me, but I knew if I stayed with you, there was a chance you would give up everything.” A watery smile curled her lips. “You wouldn’t have wanted to hurt me by breaking my heart. You’re too much of a gentleman.”
Shoving a hand back through his hair again, he gave a rough, masculine snort as he shook his head. “Christ, Lainey. You’re the only person in the entire world who would ever accuse me of being noble.”
“But you are. And that’s why I won’t let you do it. There’s got to be another way because I refuse to let you die for me, Nick.”
He stopped at the side of the bed. “I choose to think of it as living for you,” he murmured roughly, grabbing her ankles and pulling her toward him so that he was standing between her legs as she sat on the side of the mattress. He stared down at her with so much heat she felt burned. “I wouldn’t want to live on without you, Lainey. I couldn’t. And I know I should have told you how I felt before, but I’m saying it now.” Dropping to his knees, he shoved his fingers into her hair, his blue eyes glittering with emotion as he said, “I fell completely in love with you in that bunker, Lainey Maxwell. And as sorry as I am that you lost your brother, I’m grateful as hell that you were brought into my life.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered breathlessly, unable to hold back a flood of tears. “So much, Nick.”
With a heartfelt groan, he said, “Thank God.” But then he rubbed the callused pad of his thumb across her damp cheek, and a frown wove its way between his dark brows as he said, “I want so badly to make you happy, but you know that life with me isn’t going to be easy.”
Touching her fingertips to the scar on his biceps where the werewolf had bitten him that first night, she asked, “How are you doing with...everything?”
“I’ll be better now that I’m with you. I haven’t been fit to be around since you left,” he admitted sheepishly. “But I’m handling the bite okay.”
“You’re not in any pain?” she asked with obvious concern.
He shook his head. “It was frightening at first, changing like that, but the second night I had more control and even more the night after that. But I’ll never be...normal for you, Lainey.”
“Normal is boring,” she told him with a soft smile, running her fingers through his dark hair. “I’d hate normal.”
A wry grin twisted his lips. “I’m glad you feel that way. Because I’m sure I’ll be a handful whenever it’s a full moon, I probably won’t even let you out of bed.” He pushed her hair back from her face, his expression positively sinful. “But knowing you, it won’t be anything you can’t handle.”
“You got that right,” she agreed with a teasing purr. “I’m expecting you to be a handful every night in the sack, so the full-moon sex will just be a bonus.”
A shock of heat flared in his blue eyes, one of those deliciously husky laughs rumbling up from his chest as he said, “Bite or no bite, I’ll always be an animal with you, Lainey. You just...affect me.”
“And I’m glad as hell about that.” With a serious note creeping into her voice, she added, “So long as I’m the only woman who gets to see that side of you. We never really talked about—”
“We never talked about it,” he grated, cutting her off, “because I thought you understood. I don’t share. No other man ever gets his hand on you.”
Pressing her palms against his warm, solid chest, she said, “I don
’t want any other man, Nick. But I feel the exact same way about you.”
“I sure as hell hope so because you’re the only woman I want.” His voice was getting rougher, and she could feel the pounding of his heart. “The only woman I’ll ever want or touch or kiss or make love to,” he told her, his big hands suddenly landing on her hips as he jerked her closer.
“No flirting either,” she warned him, so full of happiness she thought she might burst.
He got that haughty, insulted look that always made her smile. “Do I look like a bloody flirt, Lainey?”
“You flirt with me like crazy,” she pointed out.
Eyes smoldering, he gripped her ass and gave a sexy growl. “That’s because you’re mine, woman. I can do whatever the hell I want with you.”
“You got that right.” She cupped the side of his beautiful face in her hand, her smile falling as she asked, “But what are we going to do about the future? Isn’t there any way you can...keep me with you?”
“I love you, Lainey. That means I’m damn well going to marry you and keep you with me for the rest of our lives.”
Though she was beyond excited about that “marry you” part, she knew they needed to talk this out. “But my life isn’t like yours. I don’t want you to die because of me, Nick. I couldn’t stand that.”
“And I can’t stand the thought of hurting you,” he muttered, his voice so low it was almost soundless. “Please don’t ask me to do that, Lainey.”
She studied his raw expression and suddenly realized what he meant. “Nick, is there a way that you could...change me? So that I could be like you?”
His face was tight with tension. “I don’t want to talk about it now.”
Almost too afraid to hope, she said, “Whatever it is, I love you, Nick. That means I’m willing to do whatever it takes to share my life with you. The more time we have, the better.”
The look in his eyes was dark and wild and his breathing was getting jagged. “I love you, too,” he groaned. “So much it scares the hell out of me. So much that the thought of you giving up your world for mine makes me want to—”
Darkest Desire of the Vampire: Wicked in MoonlightVampire Island (Harlequin Nocturne) Page 12