At least, before tonight. After Alexander had mentioned the loans, though…
But he didn’t like having anyone pull his strings. Not his father, not the Lyon Group…
He looked into Nicki’s eyes. He was already burning for her to make him forget, to give him what he ached for, and was too damned proud to admit it out loud.
Nicki considered him with a wise-beyond-her-years gaze, with a need that matched his.
Let’s just forget about all of it…
“I believe you, Shane,” she finally said. Then she touched that vampire book, running a finger over the cover, which depicted a muscle-bound, long-haired man with an unbuttoned shirt and a look of mild, dark menace.
“Why don’t you just come on over here, Nicki.”
With a tiny, knowing smile, she slid one knee onto the bed, reaching back to her foot and undoing the straps of a sandal.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked.
Taking her by the waist, he pulled her toward him until she straddled him. In the meantime, she worked off her other sandal.
He recalled that scene he’d just read—the cruel vampire lord making his victim moan and scream with desire—and Shane rested his palms on her lower thighs, under her skirt, where her flesh was soft and smooth.
Power. Tonight, he was a lord who could make a woman do anything he wanted, who had a grip on everything around him.
He roamed his hands up her thighs, and when he came to her lace panties, he hooked his thumbs into their sides, tugging them down.
Nicki bit her lip, closing her eyes.
Outside the open window, the moon glowed, just as it would outside a dark castle. Night creatures sang with soft rhythm, a tree’s branches stirring, restless. It was getting cooler, the unseasonal weather wearing off, and the breeze that toyed with the curtains played over him, too.
He got her panties down, and she took them off the rest of the way. The innocent, white dress she was wearing… It was perfect for this fantasy, which he realized he might be even more fully invested in than her.
Lord. Master.
Fully in control of his destiny, at least here.
While he unbuttoned her bodice, he said, “White. This is a color for purity. Are you pure?”
“Do you want me to be?” she asked.
Yes, he did, just for the time it would take to dirty her up and down.
He only smiled, peeling open that bodice to show her sweet lace bra—white, made for a nice girl who’d wandered into the wrong castle.
The bra hooked in the front, and he made short work of that, just before cupping both hands over her breasts.
She leaned her head back, and he just about growled at the sight of his tanned skin against her paleness. The sun hadn’t shone here, on one of her most private places. He felt like the first.
And…last?
The thought startled Shane, urging him to take her thin dress straps and yank them down, bringing a gasp out of her.
A shocked, delighted look stole over her face, parting her lips, making her eyes big and bright. The sight of that white material bunched around her waist affected him like a mean punch to the gut.
The village virgin.
Right now, she was his sacrifice.
He tore the dress off the rest of the way, seams ripping with soft protest, and in his passion, he grabbed her, turned her over and brought her to the bed, face down, her arms over her head, her hands spread against her quilt.
He had her now, completely bare to him, her ass shapely and enticing, her skin calling out for him to taste it.
Even if he wasn’t a real vampire, he hungered for her as he’d never hungered for anyone before, dying a little inside, realizing that, perhaps, he’d been a bit dead in spots that hadn’t mattered until he’d seen Nicki for the first time in years the other night.
Needing to touch her, he put his hands on her waist, and she lifted her hips.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like you.”
It was no lie, either.
Best of all, though, there was a beauty in him being another person during this game, because she would never know how he felt during the heat of these moments.
IT WAS A NEW SENSATION for Nicki—being laid out without a stitch of clothing on her, vulnerable and not knowing what would come next.
Without being able to see Shane, she could actually believe that he was a bad, bad vampire who was about to take her life’s blood, and without any compunction whatsoever, she knew that she’d always been willing to give it to him.
She always would be, in a manner of speaking.
She felt his hands skim her hips, then move up, under her, so that he palmed her breasts. In her belly, wings brushed her, hard and soft, confusing her, tickling and teasing with cruel intent.
He leaned down to whisper in her ear, and the fact that she couldn’t see him made the fantasy even easier to get lost in, blurring the lines again between Shane and the man who was her playmate.
“I want all of you,” he said. “Seeing you isn’t enough. Feeling you isn’t enough.”
Then he nipped her neck with his teeth, and she bucked as a zing of carnal voltage flew through her. It swelled between her legs, wet and plump.
She lifted her head, trying to peer up at him over her shoulder and nearly begging for him to just kiss her… But she wasn’t going to beg.
Never.
He obviously had different ideas, anyway, and his mouth latched to her neck, not in a kiss, but in a…
Drawing in a breath, she realized that he was sucking.
Oh…
She moved with every draw, hardly thinking about the hickey that would stain her. She didn’t mind, the mark would be his.
Meanwhile, one of his hands had traveled down to the center of her stomach, to her belly, and he rubbed it, keeping time with every suck.
Damn, she wished he was an everlasting creature—that he’d turn her into one, too, because she could definitely go on like this for eternity…
She was so into it that she was wiggling her hips, grinding back against him, bare rear end to the jeans-covered hardness between his legs.
That must’ve done something for him, because he grunted low in his throat, stroked his mouth from her neck to her back and mapped a shoulder blade with his lips—a damp path punctuated by tiny nips. Then he went to her spine, gnawing his way down until he got to the small of her back.
When he took a patch of skin at the top of her derriere into his mouth, sucking again, she knew she was going to have another vampire kiss on her.
And, in this moment, she wanted a million of them. She didn’t care if they covered her from head to toe.
She gasped as he switched his attentions lower, to the curve where her rear met her thigh, and she gripped the quilt.
By the time he sucked at that sweet spot, she was ready to lose it completely.
“Shane…” she said on a heated whisper.
He stopped, as if cold water had doused him. Or maybe even a stroke of sunlight.
Then, as if he wanted to punish her for calling out his true, hidden name, he nibbled his way to her inner thigh, pushing her legs apart while sliding one of his hands under her, lifting her slightly under the belly. His other hand curled around her shin, raising her leg so she was bent at the knee.
“Who am I?” he asked. “Or, more precisely, who is Shane?”
Maybe he really didn’t know, because she’d wanted to ask Shane Carter the same question so many times.
But he’d obviously gone full vampire by now, relieving her of the need to answer, and he bit her where she suspected the femoral artery was on her inner thigh.
Just like the vampire, Lord Darquehaven, in her book. Just like the scene Shane had read before she’d come into her room tonight.
The pain of his kiss was enough to make her cry out slightly, but not enough to break her skin.
He halted again, and that hurt even more.
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“Go on,” she said.
Take all of me.
He paused, as if he was about to remind her that she shouldn’t be ordering a vampire lord around. But then, as if his body was more in charge than his brain, he obeyed her, adding an extra layer of madness and sensuality as he brought the hand that had been propping her up below her belly and dragging it down, between her legs. He slipped two fingers inside her, swirling them.
Biting her on the thigh, sliding inside her…
It was more than she could stand, and suddenly she reached a climax—a sharp jolt that stretched violently, pulling into something longer, growing more intense as he bit and stroked—
She cried out into the mattress, burying her face in it, an inner heat flaring and then burning out like a falling star that disappeared before it hit ground.
Her world was a blur of fire and breathless helplessness as she recovered, one minute…two…
Still barely able to breathe, she tried her best, anyway. Actually, she didn’t care if she ever breathed again. She’d hit the top, and she wasn’t sure how anything could ever be better.
He was even now sucking at her inner thigh, as if, in his feral state, he was determined to leave this one last mark on her. Then, with a surety that only cowboys and vampires like Shane had, he ended the sucking kiss, although he kept his mouth against her afterward.
A few minutes passed, and she heard the sound of him raising himself up, then felt his palms smooth over her rear.
“And to think,” he said. “The night’s still young.”
She heard more movement and knew that he was taking off his clothes, and she smiled into the mattress.
She’d been marked.
And, somehow, some way, Nicki wanted to mark him, too, by the time he left Pine Junction.
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, after he’d sent Nicki up to the sky again, back and forth, inside and out, making love to her until she ached, they rested on the bed. Nicki even thought that Shane had fallen asleep, so she sat up, stretching in the lamplight, seeing by her old-fashioned round alarm clock that it was almost midnight.
He moved around, sheets rustling, sending a sweet twist through her clit.
“In most of the books I’ve read,” she said, “the vampire has to leave at dawn.”
She peeked down at him as he reclined in her bed. Half-covered by that sheet, he was more of a man than she’d ever seen.
It was obvious that he was a working cowboy. The muscles in his arms and chest were testimonies to that. And she loved how his broad chest tapered into the slimness of his waist. She also appreciated his long legs, now hidden under the sheet. They were just as muscled, just as tempting to run her hands over.
He ruffled his short dark blond hair in post-sex contentment. “Is that a hint that I should make like a bat and fly away?”
“No.” Had she said it too quickly? Because that wouldn’t be a very happy ending at all, and at this moment, she finally had come to believe with all her heart that she could have one with him.
Her Shane.
She inched nearer to him. “I’m just talking about your average vampire—or at least what people think one’s like. Nobody these days really talks about how Dracula could go out in the light. He was just…I suppose you could say allergic to it. It was the movies that made us think vampires burn right up in the sun.” She paused, then said what she truly wanted to. “But you’re not the average vampire. I mean, you weren’t.”
He tucked a hand behind his head, watching her with a glint in his eyes. “That’s good to hear.”
She pulled her gaze away. Was it weird that the raw sight of hair under his arm ramped her up again?
Then again, what didn’t do it for her when it came to Shane?
She got out of bed, trying to ignore that her heart was breaking around the edges. Maybe that was normal, though, when a girl knew that she was falling for a man who only really saw her in different roles.
How could she change that?
Going to the mirror that canted above a tall dresser, she turned around, glancing over her shoulder, inspecting her “vampire bites.” They were a trail of red hickies, like brands, showing that she belonged to him—even if he didn’t know it.
“I guess a swimsuit is out of the question for a while,” she said. It’d be real cute to show off a literal display of love sucks on her body if she were to go someplace like the public indoor pool at the YMCA in the next town.
“It’s getting to be autumn, anyway. Forget swimsuits.”
Nicki nodded in a agreement. Until now, the season had put off being autumn in favor of staying summer for an extra-long time.
When she looked back at Shane, she discovered that his gaze was trained on the dresser next to the one with the mirror.
The one with the outlaw bandanna and the red pirate sash on it.
A furious blush consumed her. Funny, how she could stand here in front of him buck naked, but it’d been those two souvenirs that brought out the embarrassment.
She tried for lightheartedness. “Candace told me that I ought to start decorating my room.”
“Somehow,” he said, so casually that she relaxed a bit, “I suspect that you just never got around to putting those things away.”
She’d go with that. It wouldn’t do to let him know that she liked seeing those “trophies” every time she came into her room.
But it bothered her that she was covering even this up. Why not be honest with Shane?
Why not see where it led?
Nicki cowboyed up, going back to the bed, slipping under the sheet, turning off the light. She suspected that it might make it easier for him to talk that way.
“Every time I see those reminders,” she said, “I feel more like a woman than I ever have before.”
In the moonlight, she saw him roll to his side to look at her. Was it a good thing that she couldn’t see his expression?
“If I didn’t know any better,” he said, “I’d say you were born a woman, Nicki. It only took a while for everything else about you to catch up.”
“And it took you long enough to notice.”
“I wasn’t here to see it happen. And, honestly, I noticed the change in you right away at that Halloween party, although I didn’t see it was really you at first, not in that saloon girl costume.”
She smiled to herself, even if he couldn’t witness it. Who knew that she could ever feel this way with a man? Smiley, still a little giddy and dizzy…
“I haven’t gotten around much,” she said. “Except with Arthur. That was the name of my first and, before now, only real adult boyfriend. He left me wanting to hole up in the ranch office, away from just about everyone in town. He made me think that I wasn’t all that special, so I retreated all the way, telling myself I needed to pay all my attention to the ranch and not anything unimportant like a boyfriend. Even if you had been in Pine Junction this entire time, you probably wouldn’t have noticed me because I was in full workaholic mode until Candace moved in.”
He touched her cheek, and it was such a casually tender gesture that her throat closed up.
“Sounds like Arthur was a real winner,” he said. “A real sensitive creature.”
“You’ve got some of that in you…sensitivity.” She could’ve sworn she sensed a glimmer of it in him now.
He took his fingers away from her face. “Naw. I’m only sensitive enough to know when a conversation gets too deep.”
If that wasn’t a thudding hint, she didn’t know what was. But she didn’t want to stop. Hell, if she didn’t say what she needed to now, she doubted she ever would, and to live the rest of her life with that kind of what-if…?
No way. If anything, she’d recently learned that taking a chance could pay off.
“You’re a lot of things that I think you don’t realize you are,” she said. “You’re smart, strong, loyal…”
“Me?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t comfortably. She’d hit a nerve in him.
Then he said, “You’d better not say that anywhere in town. People would laugh you right out of it.”
“No, they wouldn’t.”
From his pause, she knew that he didn’t believe her, and it stung.
How could he not see how much he’d changed? How he carried himself now, how everyone approved of him coming back to work at his family’s deserted ranch?
How they wanted him to succeed more than any of them because of what he’d had to endure with his dad?
Silence pressed against the air while neither of them said a word—not until he sat up, pushing away the sheet.
“I guess I do have something in common with that vampire I was tonight,” he said. “We are both affected by the dawn.”
Yup, it was over for now.
Shane added, “At sunrise, the vampire shuts himself away for some sleep and I wake up, ready to tackle all that work that’s waiting for me.”
“Shane,” she said as he went to the foot of the bed, climbing out of it. The moonlight from the window, which he had shut after their first bout, covered him there, and she yearned for him. Every bit, body, soul…
…and heart.
He got dressed, then came to her, leaning down.
Was he going to kiss her?
He chiseled away at her hopes once again by pressing his lips to the top of her head, then stroking her hair.
“Thank you for another good time, Nicki.”
That’s all he said before he left. No I’ll-see-you-agains. No promises of another fantasy.
Still, on Nicki’s skin, the brands he’d left on her pulsed, just like eternal kisses.
UPON RETURNING TO the Slanted C, Shane didn’t get one second of shut eye, though he’d tried for about an hour before giving up altogether and saddling up to ride the east side of the property, seeing where he’d have to patch up the fences in that hardly used area.
It went without saying for Shane that he had a whole lot of patching up to do. The fences he’d kept around himself were wearing down around Nicki, and he’d never expected for that to happen.
She had no idea how close he’d come to losing it with her last night—that he’d been on the edge of giving more than he’d ever given. So he’d made up for it, maybe even in a way that most women would’ve found too over-the-line.
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