Deep is the Night: Dark Fire

by Denise A. Agnew

  With a sigh of resignation, Erin went to the closet and searched for a pair of flannel pajamas and her robe in the closet. She dressed quickly in the chilly air.

  When she came back to the room, he’d turned on the lamp. As the low light illuminated the room, she saw he stood in nothing but his jeans, unbuttoned at the top. Well…that made her mouth water. He then slipped a sweater over his head.

  Erin followed him to the front door, her warm fleece robe tight against the winter night. When he turned on the porch light and opened the door, she at first couldn’t see the vampire. A dark shadow, not entirely substantial, stood near the open door. Erin stepped back behind Lachlan, fear shooting through her like lightning.

  When the shadow stepped closer, his form evolved and changed at once into a man. “Sorry, Lachlan. I didn’t mean to scare her. Didn’t want anyone to see me around the neighborhood.”

  Amusement mixed with devil-may-care in a velvet rich voice. Laced with a husky Irish accent, his potent and sexy voice brushed against her ears. His voice drew her forward a step. She did it without thinking, an involuntary motion like steel drawn to magnet.

  Lachlan moved back from the door and gestured inside. “Come in and show her that you’re not an animal.”

  Ronan moved into the living room.

  “Don’t lie to her now.” Ronan’s big hand came down on Lachlan’s shoulder. “Because I am an animal.”

  As the vampire turned toward her, Erin appreciated right away why women collapsed at his feet in a faint. It had nothing to do with vampire powers, either. While she loved Lachlan, the vampire before her would defy any woman not to do a double take.

  Something over six feet, he stood taller than Lachlan. As he caught her gaze, she almost gasped. Ronan owned the brilliant eyes of a fallen angel. Deep and dark, his gaze burned with uncanny knowledge accumulated through hundreds of years. His hair, a tossed combination of lush chocolate and reddish waves, dipped over his collar. A short cinnamon-brown heard and mustache angled from his sideburns downward.

  Ronan’s black leather jacket made him look rugged and ready for anything. He’d left it open and revealed a thick red wool sweater and jeans with black boots. His look said casual and yet sexy with a capital S. No wonder women ate this man up.

  Lachlan clapped him on the back and smiled. “What’s it been? Five years?”

  Ronan’s his rusty, deep voice touched her ears. “Four, since our last hunt.”

  “You’ve hunted vampires together before?” Erin broke into their solitary conversation, curious about the ghastly adventures they’d accumulated.

  Once again Ronan’s attention turned onto her, and the weight of his attention bothered her. A niggling fear dawned inside, even thought she knew this handsome man wasn’t a monster like the ancient one. Despite this, he was still a vampire, and part of her didn’t like that.

  Ronan put his hand out to her. “Pleased to meet you. Lachlan has told me about you.”

  Firm and strong, his grip reassured her as she shook his hand. She dared look into his eyes, and saw kindness laced with his unholy origins. Perhaps she could trust him. “And he’s told me about you. Do you think we can stop this…this ancient one?”

  Down in those eyes she saw disturbing uncertainty. If a vampire hunter of great strength didn’t have the confidence, what would they do?

  “That remains to be seen,” Ronan said. “No one has managed more than a slight injury to him.”

  As if he saw her fear, Lachlan clasped her elbow and urged her back down the hallway. “We don’t have long. Get dressed.”

  As she allowed Lachlan to lead her to the bedroom, she dreaded the next few hours. After they closed the door, Lachlan spun her into his arms and kissed her with voracious passion. He tasted and explored as he plunged his fingers through her hair. When he released her, their breathing came hard and fast.

  “What was that for?” she asked breathlessly.

  “In case I don’t get to do it again.”

  “What?” She heard the hurt in her voice and it speared her heart. Physical pain would have been preferable to the sting of stark terror that began to build in her mind.

  “The ancient one is coming.”

  Shivers ran through her frame, and he held her closer. “How soon?”

  “Within hours.

  “But if we stay here and don’t invite him in, we’ll be safe.”

  “Are you going to stay in this house forever? Never going out? What if I can’t be with you one day and he comes for you? What will you do?”

  Tears trickled from her eyes. “This is a showdown, then? Are we challenging him to a duel?”

  He nodded. “We have to hurry, but no matter what happens, I will always have a piece of you here.” He took his fist and tapped it against his chest. “There’s nothing I want more than to tell you I’ll survive this, but I can’t.”

  The very idea of this powerful, amazing man fighting to the death made everything inside her rebel. She reached for him, tossing her arms around his neck. A sob broke from her throat as his arms held her tight against him. “Please. Please be careful. You have to stay alive for me, you understand?” Erin pulled back a little so she could see him through her tears. “Promise me.”

  Lachlan tried to remember if he’d ever felt this afraid and yet this determined. Perhaps not. At this moment he wanted her love with a fierceness that tore through every doubt he had. “But if it takes my life to save yours—”

  She beat once on his chest. “No, damn you! Don’t you understand? I haven’t said it out loud, but you know it. You have to know it.” With a voice broken in fear and sorrow she whispered, “Oh, God. Why didn’t I say it before? I don’t know how you did it in just a few days, but you’ve turned everything upside down and inside out and now there’s only one thing I know.”

  He reached up to cup her face in his hands, his lips brushing away her tears as they fell. He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “What?”

  “I love you. I love you.”

  He’d waited a long time for her to say those three words, and although she’d said them in her mind many times, nothing beat hearing them come from her lips. He smothered her next attempt at words and kissed her with passion that said forever and always. Heat pounded in his groin, and he burned to sink his cock deep into her wet channel and feel her cunt clench around him in fierce climax. Sweat dotted his forehead as the need started to build.

  Erin saw the glow in his eyes turn furnace hot. Everything he thought lay bared for her to see. She didn’t require mind communication to tell that this man cherished her and wanted her fiercely.

  “I thought maybe if I let your love carry us, I wouldn’t need to say the words,” he said. “Because if I said them, I’d have to admit it was true. With my fiancée, I told her I loved her not long after I met her. She always said she felt the same, but she never repeated those three words.”

  “She was a fool. She didn’t say that she loved you, not even once?”

  “No. With you I reacted to memories rather than to what was happening here and now. God, how I regret that.”

  “You love me?” she asked with anxious hope.

  “More than my own life, I love you.” He illustrated it with another deep, tongue-thrusting kiss that left her trembling with renewed hope in her veins. “I love you, I love you.”

  When those precious words left his mouth, she buried her face in his neck and snuggled one more minute into the safety she found. “I love you.”

  Lachlan kept her close for several moments, and she drank in his masculine, clean scent and the strength she felt in his hands as he caressed her back. “After this is over, if we survive it…”

  “Yes?”

  “Marry me.”

  Joy ripped through her and tears filled her eyes for what seemed the hundredth time in an hour. “Lachlan.” She sniffed. “Oh, Lachlan.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes, yes, yes.”

  He
laughed softly and his arms tensed around her. “If there was time, I take you now.” His voice thickened with passion. “I’d rip your pajama pants off, tear open my fly, and just fuck you mindless. That’s how much I want you. Nothing else but my cock buried in your pussy.”

  His erotic words, spicy, made her cream her panties in one incredible rush. “Let’s do it.”

  His gaze was incredulous but fired up by the idea. He rolled his hips against hers and his erect cock nudged her cunt. Reckless or not, foolhardy or not, their bodies wanted each other.

  Then she remembered Ronan in the living room, and thought about how crude it would be to make love while he was in the living room. Granted, the door was closed, but—

  He’ll understand, lass.

  Are you certain?

  A feral grin touched his lips. Yes. And if I don’t have you right now, I’m going to come in my pants anyway.

  She reached for his fly. “Can’t have that.”

  He got to his fly first and tore at it while she removed her robe and pajamas in a few, furious movements. Without second thoughts slid backward onto the bed. She lay with arms and legs sprawled wide open.

  “Now,” she said.

  “Now.”

  Nothing fancy. No foreplay. No inventive positions.

  Only raw sex.

  “Condom,” he rasped as he started to reach into the drawer.

  She grabbed his hand. “No.”

  His eyes widened. “Erin.”

  “If you die, I want something of you inside me.”

  “We can’t be certain—”

  “Give me this one thing. A part of you to take with me, no matter what.” Tears welled in her eyes again. “It will make me stronger.”

  She saw lust build in his eyes. He knew the risk, the danger of coming inside her. She saw the moment the idea of making her pregnant fired his sexual hunger into overdrive. His pupils widened, his nostrils flared the slightest bit.

  With a last yank he freed his cock.

  Framed by his open fly, his masculinity stood hard and thick and asked for her touch. The sight of such perfect, aroused male flesh made molten thick heat explode in her cunt. When he touched her between the legs, she gasped at the tingling, mind-splintering desire erupting inside her. She must have him or die trying. Erin knew her slick heat bathed his fingers, and he tested her readiness with one dip of his middle finger into her slit.

  She moaned. “Lachlan.”

  She whimpered with raging, instantaneous desire as he climbed on top of her and lowered his hips between her legs. With one incredible, driving thrust he speared her to the womb. A strangled cry caught in her throat, and Lachlan kissed her to mask the sound. He stilled for maybe a half second. He drew back.

  Rammed forward.

  As she groaned in stunned ecstasy, his hips plunged. Plunged again. Began a rolling, twisting, insistent fucking that shattered and shook her to the core.

  This was blinding, never ending love and promises. Whatever happened from this moment forward, their love would be sealed in this last act of ultimate pleasure. As her slick channel wept, she felt herself getting wetter, as his naked cock slid and probed and danced inside her with a friction that felt so astounding she knew she could die now and have no regrets.

  Her cunt pulsed and contracted, tickling and teasing, burning and expanding. She moaned again and again and again.

  Then she knew it for what it was. She’d never experienced a climax that started from the first thrust to the last, and she knew it happened because of the love between them.

  Come, lass. Fuck me.

  His hips churned against hers.

  Faster.

  Harder.

  As she caught his rhythm in her heart and mind, all thought left Erin. Sensation piled upon sensation. Heat, motion, heavy puffs of breath against her ear, the sound of his male yearning. Her breathy gasps of bliss.

  Almost weeping with blazing desire for final release, she grabbed his ass cheeks. Braced on his forearms, he thrust inside her now with a hammering cadence that forced agonized groans from his throat.

  He jabbed deep inside, hesitated, thrust, withdrew. A strangled moan of desperation came from his throat, and he slid his hands under her ass. Cupping her butt he thrust wildly, with a bestial rutting that sent her orgasm into the last stratosphere. She cried out, supernova heat erupting up through her as his hips gave a last plunge.

  His entire body shook, and she felt his hot cum shoot deep inside her. One pulse, two, outlined by a shuddering moan as he collapsed atop her.

  I love you.

  His husky intonation in her mind left her floating on a wave of bliss so shattering she wanted to hold him and demand they stay here forever. They could live on love and sex.

  Instead she told him mentally, And I love you.

  Lachlan moved off of her and drew her into his arms, his body quaking with aftershocks. They didn’t have long.

  With gentleness she inched from his arms and sat up. No more time for subtle touches, lingering caresses or the melting enjoyment of afterglow. With despair and reality taunting her, she went to the closet and found a pair of jeans and a turtleneck sweater. As she dressed, she realized Lachlan had put on a windbreaker.

  “Won’t you be cold?” She slipped into her hiking-snow boots and laced them.

  “If there’s a fight, the last thing I need is bulky clothing.”

  Resigned, she spotted the strange gun lying on the dresser. “Will you carry it, or shall I?”

  “You, lass. I want you to have something for defense in case anything happens to Ronan or me.”

  She took one last glance around the room, remembering with an ache in her heart that they’d loved here and maybe never would again.

  When they returned to the living room, Ronan sat on the couch with a nonchalance that said he either didn’t care what would happen, or he had the satisfaction of knowing what to expect. She couldn’t help but blush under his steady gaze.

  When Lachlan stood by her side, Ronan grinned.

  His hard eyes gave way to twinkling amusement, and the sensual curve of his lips over straight, white teeth said he’d heard. Everything.

  Erin gulped, embarrassment making her face hotter.

  Ronan’s gaze danced from Erin to Lachlan, then back again. “Fortified for the fight?”

  She cleared her throat. “Um…yes.” She stepped forward, a challenge in mind. “How are you going to help us?”

  Ronan closed his eyes, and for a second she imagined him flying across the night in his mind, searching the town for the ancient one. Could vampires fly?

  Yes, lass. Lachlan’s voice answered in her mind.

  When Ronan’s eyes popped open, he contemplated her and Lachlan with grave attention. Ronan stood and walked toward them, and she backed into Lachlan.

  Lachlan’s arms went around her waist. “Don’t be afraid.”

  “A vampire assaulted me the other night and you’re telling me I have nothing to fear. How do you figure that?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her tone. “This isn’t something a woman deals with every day. When Ronan comes near, I can feel some force that compels me to run away.”

  Ronan put up one hand in conciliation. “She’s right, Lachlan. She’s been toyed with by a vampire. When she meets another vampire there will always be a little fear.” He frowned. “Were you bitten?”

  “No.” She said the word with haste, as if speaking more quickly would make the statement truer. “No.”

  Relief seemed to alter Ronan’s expression for a second, and he gestured to the doorway. “Midnight comes soon. Let’s greet the beast.”

  Chapter 26

  As the graveyard came into sight a few miles outside Pine Forest, Erin felt her entire body shiver with unrelenting fear and cold.

  Silvery moonlight spilled across the black iron gates, their spikes defying anyone to enter.

  Lachlan pulled his Lexus to a halt near the gates.

  “The graveyard?” Erin
asked as she stepped out of the driver’s side of her car. “Dare I ask why we are here?”

  She’d tried to get them to tell her earlier, but they said they should wait until they arrived. They stood outside the padlocked black iron gateway into the graveyard on the outskirts of town. Glad for her boots, she stepped through six inches of crusted-over snow. The crunching noise sounded loud, intrusive on the quiet of the forest. She winched, half afraid the vampire would be disturbed by her tromping around.

  An occasional breeze rustled the pines around them, and she pulled her hat down over her ears. Neither Lachlan nor Ronan seemed effected by the cold. The two tall, strong men looked invincible. Black shadows in the night, they might be shades or other monsters in the eerie scene before her.

  Her insides started a trembling born of cold and mind-numbing fear. Erin drew a deep breath and tried to jam her fear back into a manageable state.

  She’d mentioned flashlights, but Lachlan and Ronan objected. They could see in the dark, and although she couldn’t navigate as well, the brightness of the moon made it easier to see. They couldn’t risk the illumination of a flashlight attracting the ancient one. The vampire probably already knew they had arrived.

  Ronan looked into the star-filled night. “He has a crypt here.”

  “You’re kidding?” She stared at the men in surprise. “But, there aren’t any empty—” She realized what he meant. “Oh, I see. Does he toss out the other body, or just—“she gulped, “live with it?”

  Ronan responded to her uneasy question with a grin, then his gaze shadowed again. “He often lives with it. He doesn’t want anyone to suspect where he is. If he left the body outside someone would investigate. If anyone has found it before tonight, he has probably killed them by now. Any talk of someone missing? A groundskeeper here, perhaps?”

  Lachlan shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “What do we do first?” Erin asked.

  “We’ll search for the crypt,” Lachlan said, and he put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed with a reassuring grip. “Search for a broken seal.”