“Your breathing is all funny,” she said. “Are you claustrophobic?”
Others were looking at him now. Becoming the center of attention was never a good thing for a vampire. Zack had drilled that into him. Seaveth was even more of a sergeant about it now vampires were assimilating into human society. He swallowed. “I’m fine,” he said.
But he wasn’t. He looked at Mia. She was still watching. She knew it was him. There was no way to deny it. No escape. No bluff he could use to fool her. The knowledge gleamed in her eyes.
“Give him room, please,” she said. “Everyone, stand back a bit.” She stepped closer, taking charge.
They all shuffled back and squeezed closer together, clearing eighteen inches. Mia pushed between them and stepped into the space. “Take a deep breath,” she told him, her voice low.
He couldn’t tear his gaze from her face. The tears in her eyes pooled and one fell down her cheek. Just one. But she didn’t wipe it, or show any sign of emotion. Cool, calm, controlled. “We’re nearly there,” she added, speaking for the others in the car, maintaining the illusion of a claustrophobe in full panic mode. She knew as well as he did it was nothing of the sort.
As the doors opened, the others stood back, letting them exit first. She grabbed his lapels and hauled him from the car. He let her, for he stood a foot higher than her and outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds. But her scent was wreathing his head and making his senses reel. Something with vanilla and…grapefruit? He could feel his incisors trying to descend and his mouth filling with vampire saliva to deaden her flesh so she wouldn’t feel the first piercing of his teeth. His cock was pounding with the agonizing need to slam her up against the marbled walls of the foyer and fuck her senseless.
He was almost hyperventilating with the dilemma.
Her hand rested on his chest. God, he could feel her heat through her hand. He swallowed.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” she whispered. No hello. No attempt to confirm who he was. She was that sure of him despite ten years.
He couldn’t afford to answer her, to even start the conversation. Instead, he stared at her, soaking up details. She had been eighteen when he left and even at that age, infinitely dangerous to his pulse. Now she was a mature woman and beyond dangerous. He could feel it in his heart, his mind, his cock. His whole body was responding to her like a nuclear magnet. She wore her dark hair down to her shoulder blades but styled in some mysterious fashion that just brushed over one eye and framed her high cheekbones and pointed chin. Her black eyes, still gleaming with tears and with their arched strong brows, were staring at him, giving him no quarter. They never had. Her lips…full, the top one like a cupid’s bow. He had dreamed about kissing those lips and woken sweating in his lonely bed all those years ago when he could sweat. Those lips still looked sweet, the teeth behind them white and beckoning.
Mia was wearing a dress. He had no way to describe it, except to say it wrapped her in roses and made the most of her figure. She had a figure. Even at eighteen she’d had a figure. He had lusted after it. In ten years, it had changed very little. Her breasts had not sagged. Her hips had not spread. Her waist was still as tiny as ever. It was that tiny waist he had grabbed as he had bent her over the counter….
He realized his heart was thundering in his ears. With her hand on his chest, she must surely feel it too.
She was frowning, staring at him. “You haven’t changed,” she said. “Not at all.” She stepped back, her hand falling away.
Alexander realized she had seen, then, he had not aged. This was one of the reasons that Zachariah and Diego had insisted he move to New York once Zack had made him.
Mia took another step backward and he could see her doing the mental math.
“Mia,” he began and stopped, mentally cursing. He’d just confirmed he was who she thought he was. Until that moment there had remained the possibility of pretending she’d made an embarrassing mistake. It would have killed him to do it and it would have hurt her, but it would have been a way out. That chance was gone now.
He closed his eyes. What a fucking disaster. He opened them again and took a last look at her. Beautiful Mia. She was starting to realize there was something dreadfully wrong. Horror was creeping into her expression. He needed to leave before she began to look at him like the monster he was.
He turned and walked away, moving fast. As soon as he reached the corridor between the elevator banks, he ducked between them and moved faster. She would never catch him once he reached the service stairs door, for he knew the basement area well. Plus, once he was out of sight of humans he could use vampire speed. He would make sure she didn’t catch him.
He had to.
* * * * *
When Shamira realized she had lost him in the crowd, she turned and leaned against the cool marble wall and caught her breath, feeling her feet throb in her Jimmy Choos. They had been the perfect shoes for the interview but right now she’d give them away for a pair of Reebok sneakers.
Alexander. Her mind whispered the name, even as she tried to distract herself with thoughts of shoes, interviews and fashion. Usually, fashion and shopping were more than adequate distractions on their own. Hell, she’d flown up from D.C. for a two-day shopping trip instead of flying straight back to San Diego after the interview. What had she been thinking? Two days shopping on Fifth Avenue? She’d grown moist and perky just thinking about it. She was shallow and superficial—
“Stop it, Mia, why are you doing this?” she whispered, rolling her head back against the marble, her eyes stinging. Truth was, she didn’t want to think about him, but she could still feel his warmth where she’d rested her hand against his chest. Alexander le Croix. The man she’d obsessed about since she was sixteen. The man who had bent her over her kitchen counter at eighteen, pushed a hand between her legs and whispered in her ear.
Her heart hurried along just at the memory of it and the memory was a decade old.
Alexander had been mixed up with the people her brothers had hung with. Her brothers had been edging into gang business but Alexander wasn’t part of the gangs, oh no. He was higher up, at the business end of affairs, moving with the silent men who listened a lot and spoke less, except to say yes or no. They dealt with amounts of money in a single transaction that would have made most folk in San Diego go white and tremble in shock if they learned of it. These were the sort of men who used the gangs as tools—commodities to move around the chessboard to complete their business.
Like all of them, Alexander spoke seldom but watched and listened, his blue eyes moving around the room and measuring people, anticipating them. The first time she has seen him was when Juan had brought him to the trailer to pick up something Juan had hidden beneath his bunk in an anonymous bag. Shamira had learned long before not to ask questions.
She had been doing homework at the kitchen table and tried to go back to it but her heart squeezed to a stuttering stop as the man with the blue eyes and dark red hair stared at her while he stood at the front door of the double-wide.
“Why don’t you shut the door and keep the cool air inside?” she suggested, trying to sound calm.
He shut it and lifted a brow in a silent question.
“Thanks,” she said stiffly and went back to work…or tried to. She couldn’t settle to it but refused to look back up, because she was almost certain the man was looking at her, still. When Juan came back to the front door where he stood, she allowed herself to look up and was glad to see the man was looking at Juan. She had a feeling, though, that she was not wrong, that until Juan entered the room he had been watching her.
After that, the man who she quickly learned was called Alexander le Croix seemed to appear at their trailer every few days or so. Sometimes he was with one of her brothers. Sometimes he wasn’t. He always had business of some kind, some reason for calling by.
Shamira found that her pulse would jump each time she realized Alexander was at the door. She was aware of the boys at school
in a giggly schoolgirl way, but Alexander was different. Alexander was a man and made her pussy ache and her clit throb, virgin though she was. Her nipples would swell when she saw him and when she thought of him.
She was careful not to let her brothers know of her reactions to him. They would kill her, then shoot Alexander, if they learned of her attraction to him.
A year wound on and she turned seventeen. Her feelings for Alexander grew stronger and more embedded. She would lie awake in her bed at night and masturbate, thinking of how he might fuck her, his cock driving into her while he watched her with his blue eyes. Then she would climax with powerful orgasms, choking her cries so no one in the trailer would hear her.
Her knowledge of Alexander le Croix grew more sophisticated, too. A question here, a casual comment there, and over fourteen months she built a solid picture of him, possibly more complex than even the local police files. Certainly, she knew more about Alexander’s sexual preferences.
He’d come out of Louisiana in his mid-twenties and cast off his accent as quickly as he could, along with his family ties. He had not looked back. Some said he didn’t return because of shame, some said orphan, some said he had been cast out. After roaming for four years, he’d stumbled into California, ended up in San Diego and took a liking to the dry heat.
Money trouble landed him in a deal with a loan shark. But Alexander was a mathematical genius, a lightning calculator, able to compute odds instantly. He had used his skills to gamble with the loan shark on an all-or-nothing bet that he’d won with interest.
His ability had come to the attention of the shark’s boss and Alexander’s entry into business life was a lock, for the boss had not appreciated the irony of the bet the way Alexander had.
Since his forced recruitment, Alexander had been working his way up the sometimes slippery chain of command, doing deals and taking what enjoyment he could from life. That enjoyment, in large part, included women.
Alexander liked women a lot and had a reputation for hunting and seducing the most attractive and hardest-to-get women in San Diego and bringing them to their knees. He liked to dominate them in bed. Here, Mia’s information became sketchy, for she’d been forced to rely on second and third-hand gossip and rumors, drawn from friends of friends of women whom Alexander had bedded. Mia didn’t know the types of woman Alexander hunted directly. She was too young and far too protected. But the rumors were fascinating. There were hints of toys, bondage, more.
The whispers were enough for Mia to expand her own sexual education, to illicitly read about these things. What she read excited her, as she imagined Alexander doing those things to her—tying her up, using dildos on her, licking her clit until she came. Even darker, more wicked play. Anal sex. Threesomes. Always, she imagined her hands thrusting into his dark red hair as she arched hard in the throes of a throbbing climax that he gave her. Mia’s masturbation sessions became even more frantic and heated.
She could barely look Alexander in the eye when he was in the room. What if he saw the knowledge in her face? She was always wet and ready for him and imagined his gaze following her as she moved about the trailer.
Juan brought Bruno Perez home for dinner one night, as well as Alexander. Alexander silently took his usual seat next to her mother, the position of honor. Her mother had long ago decided Alexander was wonderful, for he never failed to bring her flowers or compliment her in flawless Spanish. Their father had died five years ago of cancer and her mother was the head of the family, although Juan really controlled it.
Mia stared at Juan, silently demanding an explanation for Bruno.
“Bruno is taking you on a date tonight,” Juan said. “I arranged it.”
Bruno looked down at the table.
“You what?” Mia cried, bouncing back up off her chair. “How dare you!”
“You’re nearly eighteen, Mia,” Juan said. “You’ve never had a date—”
“No one gets to call me Mia except Alexander!” she screamed.
Silence. She could feel the shock around the table. Finally, she dared to look at Alexander. His blue eyes were drilling into hers. There was no laughter there. No misunderstanding. He knew exactly what she was offering…and there was acceptance.
She almost moaned with the sudden pleasure and anticipation rippling through her.
Alexander cleared his throat. “Perhaps you should go on a date, Mia,” he said mildly, “if you’ve never been on one. They can be fun.”
Juan was still staring at her, his mouth open, as if the cat had suddenly begun to speak and in Finnish, to boot. Her mother had her hands to her cheeks, appalled at the drama at her table.
Mia was trembling. Slowly, she sat down, realizing that Alexander was trying to minimize the damage and cover it up. He was controlling things. He had accepted her and now he was protecting her.
Her pussy clenched, squeezing out cream.
“I suppose one date won’t hurt,” she said stiffly, picking up her knife and fork.
Juan, with no argument left to fight, blew out his breath. “Fine,” he said and began to eat. Bruno, after some hesitation, also began to eat.
It should have been the most awkward meal of her life but all Mia could think of was the man on the other side of the table from her.
He wanted her.
She could feel her body wanting to go up in flames with the potential of what might happen now. She even submitted to the process of her first date with serene good humor. She dressed the part, wearing a virginal, pretty dress and accepted her brother’s offer of a ride to the cinema and Bruno’s clumsy attempt at a seduction in the backseat with almost hysterical amusement. Bruno walked her back to the trailer and she let him kiss her goodnight but didn’t invite him in. Juan was waiting inside with big brother seriousness. She bade Juan goodnight and headed to bed, where she would at last be alone and able to deal with her thoughts.
Alexander was waiting for her in her room.
Mia had not thought her body could possibly withstand any more heat but the moment she saw him sitting on the edge of her narrow bed, she flushed from head to toe. Her nipples hardened.
She swallowed, her hand hovering over the light switch.
Alexander held a long finger against his lips but the caution was needless. She’d learned from long experience with her own orgasms that the walls in the trailer were paper-thin.
She left the light off, kicked off her shoes and put them to one side with the others. She moved to the edge of the bed next to him and put her lips next to his ear. This close, she could feel his body heat. “Did you force my window?” she said in English.
He turned his head to murmur into her ear. His breath fanned her cheek. “It wasn’t so hard. We must talk.”
“I like your voice when you speak English.”
“Surprising. English is an ugly language.” He paused. “Mia, do you have any idea what you’re getting into? What you’re asking for?”
She shuddered, as images cascaded through her mind, a catalogue of her daydreams and research in rapid succession. Prime among them, her naked body spread beneath him as Alexander held her down and slid his cock into her pussy. She studied him in the moonlight and all she could see was what he would look like naked and resting over her, straining for release, instead of calmly sitting on the edge of her bed. “Yes,” she breathed, her voice hoarse.
Alexander lifted her chin, looking at her in the light streaming through the window. “You’re too young,” he said. “I’ll ruin you.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.” He stood up and moved to the window.
She reached for him. “Does that mean you won’t take me?” She wound her arms around him, trying to keep him near.
“If I were any sort of man at all, I wouldn’t,” he told her, his lips brushing her cheek as he spoke, making her tremble. “Maybe I’ll find the strength to say no, yet.”
Her heart squeezed to a halt. “I don’t want you to say no,” she whispered and
pressed herself up against him. She was uncertain of how effective it would be, or exactly how much power she had over him…a seventeen year old virgin’s charms against all the gorgeous women he had dominated, fucked and left?
But the effect was magical. He choked back a groan and pulled her even more tightly against him. She could feel his cock against her stomach, beating with life of its own. His hand was on her ass, pressing her hips against him while his hand twined in her hair where it lay against her back, so that her breasts were pressed against his chest, with only the silk business shirt he wore and her white cotton sundress separating them. She had deliberately worn no bra tonight to measure how desperate Juan was to have her bedded and out of his hair as a little sister. Juan had raised no protest.
Now Alexander would be able to feel her nipples against him, telling him of her arousal, if the heat of her did not.
He let her go and she could feel his reluctance. Wordlessly, he climbed out the window and was gone, leaving her to her lonely bed once more.
Their encounters after that became more heated and pointed. Mia began to realize she had power of a kind over Alexander and used it mercilessly. If there was no one else in the room, Mia would press herself against him, or touch him. Gradually, her touching became more direct, as she learned what worked best, what was most devastatingly effective upon him. If there was time, she would unfasten or unbutton his shirt and stroke or lick his chest and abdomen, her body undulating with pleasure. She liked to make him groan and to leave him breathless. She found the most delight in making his cock rock-hard and throbbing, but she never touched it directly. Sometimes she would tease him by brushing against the material tenting over it and drawing her fingernail down the straining fabric, so that the vibrations would transmit against his cock. Alexander would suck in his breath in a sharp hiss or groan. She would cup and squeeze his ass through his trousers and press her breasts against him, rubbing until her nipples ached.
He did not initiate anything. He seemed reluctant to seduce her in any way and acted like a man tortured by his own feelings. Despite her teasing he did not respond to her, even though he looked like a man just holding onto the edges of his control—he looked tired and when Mia was teasing him, his knuckles would whiten and his jaw would flex as he fought to keep still.
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