by Lisa Childs
Liam’s gut clenched, almost as if he were jealous. Of her feelings for Bryan? He’d always thought he’d been jealous of her, that no matter how much his brother had loved him, he would have rather hung out with Jennifer Williams. When Liam turned back to her, and lost himself in those mesmerizing deep green eyes, he understood why. She wasn’t just beautiful outside; she was beautiful inside, too. “He loved you, too.”
Tears trembled on her thick black lashes. “He was my best friend since kindergarten. When I got sick, other kids didn’t want anything to do with me. They seemed scared that they might catch cancer. Bryan wasn’t afraid of anything. He was fearless. And his friendship made me feel fearless.”
“His fearlessness is probably what led to his death.” When Jennifer had disappeared, Bryan had been determined to find her—with no thought to his own safety.
“You don’t blame me anymore?” she asked.
“I don’t think you killed him.” He’d had doubts in the alley—enough to spare her life then. But seeing the portraits had cemented those doubts and completely changed his mind. She couldn’t have killed someone she’d cared about so much. “But I still blame you.”
She flinched as if he’d slapped her.
“It’s your fault for taking off like you did. If he hadn’t been looking for you, he wouldn’t have found whoever killed him.” So that anger he’d felt for her, while it didn’t entirely consume him as it once had, it still gnawed at him.
“I didn’t think he’d look for me. I thought he’d assume what everyone else had—that I was dead.”
“He said he would have felt it—if you were dead,” he said, explaining his brother’s romanticism. “You were so close that he was convinced that he would have known if you were really gone.”
A tear spilled from her eye and streaked down her cheek. “Oh, Bryan…”
“How come you didn’t just know like that, that he was dead? Didn’t you love him like he loved you?” She’d painted her feelings for him, but her love looked more like deep affection. His brother’s love had bordered on obsession. At sixteen Liam hadn’t understood that kind of love—the kind that lasted longer than a week. Hell, at thirty-six he didn’t understand. He had never loved anyone like that—maybe because he’d spent so much of his life obsessed with this woman. Not out of love but out of hate and his insatiable need for revenge.
“I loved Bryan like a friend,” she said. “Just a friend…”
But his brother had wanted more, had believed that eventually she would have developed the same feelings for him that he’d had for her. If only he could find her…
“He wanted more than friendship.”
She shook her head in denial of his claim. But how could she not have known when she’d painted that love in his brother’s eyes?
“That was why he never stopped looking for you,” he continued, “until he was murdered.”
She shook her head again, with another denial and with pride. “No one I know would have harmed Bryan.”
“It had to have been the professor who killed him,” Liam reflected. “Bryan would have tracked him down first, like I had. The professor’s lecture on vampires being a myth was the last place you were seen twenty years ago. It had to have been the professor.” Liam should have killed the vampire while he’d had the chance. Even though he’d fired his makeshift weapon, he hadn’t had it pressed tight against the professor’s chest. He hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to kill.
Again. He’d killed before, in the line of duty, as a marine. Not as a vampire hunter. He’d only become a hunter to kill one vampire. Jennifer Williams.
“Professor Vossimer would never hurt anyone,” Jennifer insisted, “least of all a sweet boy like Bryan.”
“You hope that’s true because you trusted the man to protect your sister, and you might have put her in danger instead.” She’d urged Eve to leave with the professor and had confronted Liam alone in that dark alley. She was brave as well as beautiful.
“You put her in danger by sending her after him—after me!” Her anger returned, brightening her eyes and flushing her pale skin. She closed the distance between them and stabbed her finger in his chest. “How could you do that—”
“The same way I can do this,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her and lowered his head. He pressed his mouth to hers, and the passion that had simmered between them now sizzled. Heat fused their lips together in an intense kiss of possession and anger and undeniable desire. Her breasts molded to his chest, her heart pounding in the same crazy, rampant rhythm his did.
Her lips parted on a moan, and he slid his tongue inside her mouth and over her tongue. But then a sharp fang scraped it and he pulled back, as he remembered who and what she was. He dropped his arms from around her and stepped back to separate their bodies.
“Why’d you do that?” she asked, between pants for breath.
Stop or start? He knew why he’d stopped but not why he’d started. Except that she was so beautiful and she’d looked so vulnerable…
“Why’d you kiss me?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, afraid that he’d lost his mind. “Why’d you lick my neck earlier?”
“I wanted to taste you….”
As he had earlier, when her tongue had left a damp trail on his skin, he shuddered. He believed she hadn’t killed Bryan. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t capable. After all, she was a vampire.
Would she stop at just the taste—or would she take all of his blood as someone had his brother’s?
Chapter Three
The heat she’d felt earlier now rushed to Jennifer’s face. And she wished she could take back her idiotic admission. She had wanted a taste of him, though.
After his crazy passionate kiss, she wanted more than a taste. She wanted all of him…buried deep inside her. “You’re not in any danger with me,” she assured him. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”
“You don’t want to bite my neck?”
Just his asking the question had her fangs lengthening more, but she closed her lips over them and shook her head. “I don’t…do that….”
“You really are in denial.”
“Denial?” Did he know that she lied? That she hadn’t been satisfied with just a lick of his salty-sweet skin?
“You’re in denial of what you are,” he clarified. “Why did you become one of them if you didn’t want to live that life?”
“Because I wanted to live.”
“The cancer had come back?”
The old fear rushed over her, choking her, so she could only nod.
“You fought it before.”
“At my sister’s expense. I wanted to live but I didn’t want to risk her life,” she explained. “I didn’t want my parents and doctors putting her through any more painful procedures.”
He turned toward the portrait of Eve in the hospital bed, and his icy eyes warmed some with sudden understanding. “You did it for her.”
“And for me,” she insisted. She hadn’t acted selflessly. “I wanted to live.”
“Are you?”
“Of course. I’m alive.”
“But are you living? Or are you hiding out down here, from the sun—from the rest of the society, painting your portraits of the life you left behind?”
She flinched at the accuracy of his assessment.
“And how do you live…if you don’t drink blood?”
“You don’t drink your milk straight from the cow, do you?” she asked.
He chuckled, that gruff chuckle that had her pulse tripping wildly. “So you want to taste me but you don’t actually want to bite me?” he asked.
She swallowed a moan as temptation overwhelmed her. “I don’t have to bite you to taste you.” Maybe it was because he’d taunted her about hiding out that she was emboldened enough to touch him. She stroked her fingers over his fly before reaching for the tab of his strained zipper. The metal teeth sighed as she lowered it. Then she unsnapped his
jeans and freed his erection from the flap of his cotton boxers.
“Jennifer…” He groaned her name as she leaned over and closed her lips around him.
Flicking her tongue across the smooth tip of him, she teased a bead of desire from him before she sucked him deeper in her throat. Her fangs scraped down the sides of his shaft, and he jerked in reaction.
Then he clutched his hands in her hair and pulled her mouth away. “No…”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” she promised.
“But I’m hurting. And I’m going to make you hurt, too,” he said as he covered her mouth with his and started stroking his tongue between her lips
His hands smoothed over her sweater, cupping her breasts through the thin cashmere. She arched and pressed into his palms, wanting more.
He pulled back from the kiss to drag the sweater over her head and drop it onto the paint-spattered hardwood floor. She wore only a thin lace bra beneath, but he unclasped that and it, too, dropped on to the floor. His hands shook slightly as he fumbled with the clasp and zipper of her pants. Then they fell down, leaving her standing before him wearing only a thin strip of lace.
He groaned again—even though she hadn’t touched him. And he stared, his gaze skimming over every exposed inch of her. “You are so damn beautiful….”
He said it like it was a bad thing, like he resented her for her beauty. Like he blamed her for it.
Before she could take offense and come to her senses, he was touching her again. His fingers skimmed over every inch of her now, stroking her skin into goose bumps of awareness. Heat streaked through her, so that her nipples peaked and her blood pounded hot and heavy through her veins. Then his lips replaced his fingers, kissing and suckling.
He pulled the tip of a breast into his mouth and teased the sensitive nipple until she cried out at the sensation. “I’m hurting,” she said, as an unbearable pressure built in her womb. “Please…”
He tore the skimpy lace free of her hips. Then his fingers stroked through her curls, teasing the nub of her femininity before easing inside her. She arched into his hand, seeking release from that excruciating pressure. He lowered his head to her breasts again, tugging at a nipple. Heat streaked through her, and she moaned as some of the pressure eased. But even as it eased, he built it again…with his touch. Before he could release her tension, he pulled back. He shucked his long coat and his shirt, dropping them atop her clothes. Then he stepped out of his pants and pushed down his boxers.
Her breath caught at the size of him. He was so big. So aroused, his engorged flesh throbbing. “Where?” he asked. “Where’s your bedroom?”
Confident he would follow her, she led him down the short hall to her room and flicked on the lights. Wall sconces illuminated tiny circles on the brocade wallpaper and cast a gold glow onto her soft silk sheets. She kept walking, straight to the bed, dropping onto the mattress before turning back to him. He dropped the clothes he’d gathered upon the floor and followed her down onto those silk sheets, covering her body with his.
He was all satin skin, stretched taut over hard muscle. She wanted to taste every inch of him. But she could only wrap her arms around his back before he thrust inside her. She arched, trying to take him deep, but her unused muscles screamed in protest. And the scream slipped free of her lips.
He tensed, perspiration breaking out on his forehead. “Damn. You’re—” He pulled out and stood up. “You’re—”
“Not anymore,” she pointed out, her body aching from the possession of his. The pain receded, leaving the frustration of the pleasure that eluded her.
“Damn.” He groaned. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” she said, and she held out her arms for him to join her again. “Don’t stop.”
Dilated pupils darkened his pale blue eyes, and he shook his head. “I can’t stop now.”
But instead of covering her body with his again, he leaned over her. First he kissed her lips in a long, gentle kiss. Then he moved his mouth down her body, over her breasts and down her stomach. He parted her legs, and his mouth soothed the pain his body had inflicted on her.
She clutched at the sheets, fisting them in her hands, and cried out—this time in pleasure as the tension broke and she came. She had never felt anything as intense—not even when she’d changed from human to vampiress.
But before she descended from the ecstasy, he was there again. His body covered hers, and he eased inside her, gently this time. He didn’t thrust hard or deep enough. So she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his lean waist, then arched her hips, too. She took him deeper.
“Okay?” he asked, his voice rough with desire.
She nodded. “More than okay…” she murmured, the pressure building again.
He thrust harder. Deeper.
She reached her arms around his broad shoulders, holding on, meeting each of those thrusts. Panting for breath, she buried her face in his throat. As he strained, the cords in his neck distended, and his skin brushed against her lips and her fangs, tempting her to bite….
Liam was tempted. To just let her bite him. But could she stop with just that taste she wanted? He hadn’t been able to stop with just a kiss. He wanted more. Even when he’d discovered that she’d never made love before, he hadn’t been able to stop.
And now, with her muscles clutching him tight, holding him deep inside her heat, he couldn’t stop…unless she killed him. So he was tempted to just let her bite him….
Her lips brushed his throat, along with the sharp point of her fangs. Then she threw back her head and screamed, as she came again. Wet heat poured over him, and he thrust hard. Deep. And his world exploded with pleasure so intense he screamed…her name.
His hands shaking in reaction, he pushed her damp hair back from her flushed face. “You okay?” he asked again. “I didn’t hurt you?”
“No, that was…”
“Worth waiting for?” he asked, still stunned that she had been a virgin and that he found her innocence both a gift and a burden. He’d given her pleasure, but would she expect more? Would she expect a commitment?
Her eyes bright, she nodded.
“Why did you?” he asked, slowly withdrawing from her. He groaned as her muscles clutched him yet. Then he flopped onto his back beside her. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he rolled her onto his chest. “Why did you wait?”
“First I was sick,” she said. “Too sick to worry about it. To want it. And then I was…” Her breath shuddered out, warm against his skin. “Then I didn’t know what I was.”
“That makes two of us.”
“You didn’t know what I was or what you are?” she asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.
“You. I thought you were a killer.”
She pressed a kiss against his chest. “You were wrong.”
He tangled his fingers in her golden hair, and his breath shuddered out with deep relief. “I’m glad.”
For twenty years he’d hated her, had lived for the day he would track her down and exact his revenge. He should have been disappointed, devastated even. And he was that Bryan’s killer was still out there. But it wasn’t the woman his brother had loved. The woman that Liam worried he could love, too.
Was it true that hatred was just the other side of love?
“What about you?” she asked. “What are you?”
“I’m not a killer. But I have killed—in the line of duty.”
“You’re a police officer?”
“Marine,” he said with pride. In the corps he’d found the brotherhood he’d missed since Bryan’s murder.
“You’re not a…”
“A…?”
“Vampire.”
He let out a short chuckle. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you know so much about the Secret Vampire Society.”
“And I’m still alive?”
“How did you learn so much…unless you’re one of us?” she questioned him.
“My specia
lty is intelligence ops. I have ways of finding out information that nobody else can.” Neither the methods he’d employed nor the information he’d learned had allowed him to sleep easy at night.
“You’re not going to stop, are you?”
“My job?” he asked. “I retired early.” As much as he’d loved being a marine and serving his country, it had been time for him to quit. Before he’d entirely his soul. Hell, it wasn’t his job that would have cost him his soul; it was his overwhelming need to avenge his brother’s death.
“You retired early to become a vampire hunter,” she deduced. Correctly.
“I only ever intended to hunt down one vampire.”
“Me.”
He shook his head. “The one who killed my brother.”
“And you’re not going to stop until you find him or her.”
“You want me to?” he asked, nearly as stunned as he’d been at finding her untouched. “You want me to let Bryan’s killer go unpunished? I thought you loved him, too.”
“I do.” She sighed and amended, “I did.” She hadn’t had twenty years to get used to Bryan being gone. “I also knew him really well, and I know that he wouldn’t want you risking your life to avenge his death.”
Liam pulled his hands from her hair and sucked in a breath as guilt pressed more heavily on his chest than her slight weight. “I wonder what he would have felt about this—about what we did.”
Would Bryan feel that his brother had betrayed him?
“Bryan would want you to move on. He would want you to be happy.”
For the first time in years, a genuine smile tugged at Liam’s mouth. “He would.” And that was why he missed his brother so damn much. “And that’s why I can’t do it—not until I learn who killed him.”
“And kill that person.”
“Bryan deserves justice.”
“What about you? What do you deserve?”