Standing there wrapped in nothing but a towel, she relived her earlier embarrassment and scowled down at Vincent’s sleeping form. Suddenly, it was easier to tear her gaze away from his naked perfection. She strode over to her side of the bed, where her duffel sat in the dim yellow light of the single lamp, and got fully dressed even though her only immediate plans were for sleep. Or so she hoped. She didn’t know if she’d be able to sleep with Vincent next to her in the bed, even if she was fully dressed. But she had to try, because her eyes were gritty and her muscles ached with exhaustion.
She pulled on fresh underwear—including a bra, because there was no way she was going braless around the walking seduction that was Vincent—and then donned her usual traveling outfit of Levis and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She put on socks, but left her boots off, and compromised by leaving the pants unbuttoned, although she did zip them halfway. And she left her hair down. She hated to sleep with it braided. It gave her a headache and there was little worse than starting the day with an aching head.
Tucking her dirty clothes into the laundry bag she always packed, she turned back to the bed and contemplated their sleeping arrangements. Vincent was right. It was a very big bed. But he was a very big guy, and a bed hog to boot. He’d started out on one side of the bed, but he’d stretched out so that he now took up well more than his half. And he sure as hell was not the stereotypical image of a vampire at rest, either. He was supposed to be lying on his back, board stiff, with his hands crossed over his chest. Instead he was sprawled on his stomach as if he didn’t have a care, the sheet barely covering his hips, his tattoo glinting gold in the yellow lamplight.
Suddenly curious about the mysterious tattoo, she glanced all around, as if expecting to find someone watching, then tiptoed around the bed and crouched down to study it more closely. She cursed, realizing there wasn’t enough light. Moving forward slightly, she examined Vincent’s face for signs of awareness. Finding none, she stretched over him and turned on the light on his side of the bed, then went back to her study of the tattoo. It was a four-pointed star in shades of gold and brown with the face of the Mayan Sun god grimacing in the middle of a beaded circle and a green stylized band on either side. Lana didn’t have any tattoos, but all of her dad’s hunters did, and she had a good idea of how much talent went into creating something as beautiful as this. She reached out to trace her finger over the image, then pulled back guiltily.
It was bad enough that she was ogling him in his sleep. It didn’t seem fair to touch him, too. Although, knowing Vincent even as little as she did, she doubted he’d mind. She stood and turned off the lamp, then returned determinedly to her side of the bed. Vincent Kuxim was the very image of male beauty and too sexy by half. Hell, too sexy altogether if his effect on the female population of the cantina was anything to judge by.
And lucky her, she got to sleep in the same bed with him. Fuck, fuckity, fuck.
Grabbing the spare blanket—there was no way she was getting under the covers with him while he was naked—she lay down gingerly, careful to stick to the very edge of the bed. She snagged the single pillow he’d left for her, then straightened the blanket and closed her eyes.
The last thing she remembered was thinking she was never going to fall asleep.
VINCENT WOKE WHILE the sun’s last rays still glowed above the horizon and was immediately aware that someone was in the room with him. Not only in the room, but in his bed. And she was sound asleep.
Sensing no threat, he remained still for a long moment nonetheless as he considered this unusual circumstance. Vincent frequently shared his bed with the women he fed from. The act of taking blood was intensely sexual and, since male vampires were blessed with the kind of stamina and recuperative powers that kept their partners happy, an encounter typically resulted in a great deal of mutual pleasure. He didn’t know about female vamps. He’d never had sex with one and had never thought to ask.
But even though he might share his bed for the night, he never, as in never ever, shared his bed through the day. He’d never trusted any of his human partners that far. Michael knew this, which was why he’d been so surprised that Vincent had decided to travel alone with Lana Arnold. Generally, Vincent traveled with a security team that included daytime guards. And he always slept alone.
In this case, however, Vincent’s desire for secrecy, and Raphael’s tacit endorsement, had made him take a chance on Lana. Especially since he’d sensed no duplicity in her, and, as a powerful vampire, he’d definitely have known. Most humans were imperfect liars. They experienced a physical response to the stress of lying, and a vampire with even modest power could detect these responses. This wasn’t true of sociopaths, but Lana Arnold wasn’t a sociopath. One didn’t live over 150 years among humans without being able to detect the predators among them, especially when one was an accomplished predator himself.
And those thoughts brought him back to the woman lying next to him, sound asleep.
With a slow smile, he shifted oh so carefully, understanding intuitively that if Lana woke, she’d be out of the bed in a flash. She probably hadn’t intended to sleep at all, much less to get so close to him that he could feel the heat of her body along the entire length of his right side.
Pushing up off his stomach and onto his left side, he propped himself up on one elbow and studied her in the darkened room. It was cold and she was covered by only a thin blanket, which was probably why she’d unconsciously moved so close to him, drawn to his warmth. Vampires didn’t run as warm as humans, but they weren’t as cold as some fiction would have them, either. The sensible thing would have been for her to climb under the comforter with him, but she was still pretending she wasn’t attracted to him. Did she realize how much she gave away by choosing not to sleep under the covers with him?
He scooted carefully closer. Lana was lying on her side facing away from him, and she was fully clothed. He rolled his eyes, but wasn’t really surprised. He was surprised, and delighted, to discover that she’d left her hair free from the confines of its perpetual braid. As he’d suspected, it was beautiful—a wavy flow of black silk covering her shoulders and back. Unable to stop himself, he lifted a lock of it and rubbed it between his fingers, finding it every bit as soft and sensuous as it looked. He imagined all that hair sliding over his body as she licked her way down over his belly, as she took him in her mouth . . . and his cock went instantly hard. His thoughts took off, anticipating all the ways he could take her, all the places he could taste her.
He froze as she sighed in her sleep, waiting to see if she’d wake. Twirling the lock of hair around his finger, he lay there, undecided as to whether he wanted her to wake up or not. When her breathing smoothed back into sleep, he smiled and pushed the comforter away from himself, so that the only thing separating them was the sheet. And then he slowly curved his body around hers until his still-hard cock was pressed up against the firm swell of her ass. When she still didn’t stir, he went even further, draping his arm around her waist, releasing the full weight of it slowly until his fingers rested on the bare skin of her taut stomach in the gap between her T-shirt and her unzipped jeans. Lowering his head, he buried his face in the warm silk of her hair and inhaled deeply, taking in her scent. Delicious. Clean, sweet, female.
Minute changes in Lana’s muscles warned him an instant before she woke with a controlled jerk. She lay still, awake and aware, trying to pretend she wasn’t. Vincent wiped the smile off his face and closed his eyes, feigning sleep himself, slitting his eyes open just enough to watch through his lashes as she slowly turned her head to check him out. Her body relaxed upon seeing that he was still asleep, and she began to move slowly, inch by inch, trying to extricate herself from his embrace without waking him. Or, so she thought.
Vincent had to fight to keep the grin off his face, but eventually Lana managed to scoot free of him, continuing until she’d rolled right off the bed and on
to her feet. She stood there studying his half-naked and, to her eyes, sleeping body, complete with the erection that she couldn’t see under the sheet, but had undoubtedly felt against her ass. In fact, she stood there staring long enough that Vincent felt his cock beginning to harden even further, hard enough that he could feel it pushing against the covering fabric. Lana must have seen it, too, because she gave a guilty jolt and jerked her gaze up to his face to be sure he was still asleep. Seeing that he was—or so she thought—she blew out a breath, then hurried around the bed and out of sight.
Vincent didn’t move until he heard the bathroom door close and the water start running in the sink. Then he rolled onto his back and stretched luxuriously, while fisting his aching cock. He intended to have Lana Arnold before this was over. Listening to her shuffle around the bathroom, he called back the thought of having all that silky hair flowing over his body, her warm, wet mouth closing over his cock, her teeth scraping gently as she sucked harder and harder . . . He came with a swallowed groan only seconds before the bathroom door opened and Lana peeked out.
“Good evening, Lana,” he said pleasantly, jumping out of bed and heading for the bathroom without any pretense at covering himself.
She managed to control most of her startled reaction and was careful to avoid brushing up against him as he strode past her into the bathroom. But Vincent smiled in satisfaction. She was a tough one, but she wanted him all right.
He took a quick shower, just enough to wash himself off, but he shaved properly, carefully trimming around his beard and mustache. He brushed his teeth and fingercombed his hair, then rattled the doorknob noisily to warn her.
“I’m coming out, Lana,” he called, not bothering to conceal his laughter.
But when he opened the door, she’d already left. The curtains were pulled back, the bed was pulled up, and her duffel was gone. Good thing he had the keys, or she’d probably be on her way to Pénjamo by now. He frowned, then quickly patted the pockets of his jeans to verify that she hadn’t lifted the keys while he’d slept. But no, they were there. He breathed a sigh of relief and began pulling on his clothes, planning for the night ahead.
He’d fed well before retiring this morning, so there was no need to top off before leaving, although the selection in the cantina had been delicious, more than he could have hoped. Marisol had regretfully told him that her lover was new and she didn’t want to stray, but she also understood Vincent’s needs and was not a jealous woman—at least, not where he was concerned. She’d made sure there were plenty of women for him in the cantina, most of them available as sexual partners, too, if that had been his preference. But he hadn’t even considered taking any of them up on it. It would have been in poor taste to have sex with one woman when traveling with another, even if he and Lana weren’t lovers . . . yet. Though he had every intention of making her his lover before the trip was over.
He stomped his feet into his boots and laced them up, then pulled on his jacket, threw the last of his things into his duffel, and with a final look around, left the cottage. Lana was just coming out of the cantina when he walked by on his way to the parking lot.
“Good evening, Lana. Did you get some dinner?” he asked.
She nodded. “More breakfast than dinner, but yeah. It was good. This is a weird schedule you keep, vampire.”
“Not like I have a choice,” he said, with a shrug. “Let me put this in the SUV and say good-bye to Marisol, then we can get out of here.”
“My duffel’s already sitting by the SUV,” she told him, appearing slightly irritated. “I didn’t have the keys to put it inside.”
He could have offered them to her, but he still wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t leave him in the dust. So instead, he said, “I’ll take care of it and come back.”
She nodded. “Marisol’s inside. I think she’s waiting for you.”
Her words were innocuous enough, but the attitude was much more telling. She was very curious about his relationship with Marisol. Maybe he’d tell her about it later if she was nice to him.
The thought made him grin. She caught his smile and narrowed her eyes in growing annoyance. Which only made him grin harder.
“I’ll wait in the SUV,” she told him. “If that’s all right with you.”
“Do you promise not to drive away and leave me?”
Lana rolled her eyes and tsked loudly. “Of course not.”
“So you will leave me?”
“No!” she snapped. “I promise not to leave you, okay?”
“Good enough. Then, here—” He held out his duffel and the keys. “You can take my duffel, and I’ll go say good-bye to Marisol. We can leave sooner that way.”
“Oh, joy.”
Vincent laughed and barely managed to stop himself from patting her on the ass as he walked past her and into the cantina.
LANA STARED OUT her window as they zoomed down the dark highway once more, but she wasn’t looking at the scenery. She was studying Vincent’s profile as it was reflected in her window. And she was remembering the masculine beauty of his naked body, his fully aroused naked body, if she wasn’t mistaken. It was possible that he hadn’t been fully aroused, since he’d been asleep. But he’d been more than erect enough to remind her that it had been too long since she’d had a lover, erect enough to make her wonder what it would be like to have sex with a vampire. They were said to be terrific lovers. Maybe it was all those years of practice. She couldn’t imagine the biting part was much fun, although none of the women Vincent had disappeared with last night had seemed to mind. And Marisol was clearly a fan.
“I could have slept in the SUV if you’d needed privacy, you know,” she said, admitting to herself that she was probing.
Vincent shot her a puzzled frown. “Why would I need you to do that?”
“I know that when you feed, it involves sex. If you’d wanted the room to yourself, I’d have understood.”
“I don’t sleep with the women I feed from.”
Lana snorted in polite disbelief. “Right. That’s why you sleep naked.” Damn. That was the wrong thing to say.
Vincent grinned. “Were you ogling me, Ms. Arnold?”
“I didn’t need to ogle with you prancing around the way you do.”
“I don’t prance.”
“The hell you don’t.”
“Well, regardless, I don’t sleep with my partners. Ever.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“It’s a matter of security. You saw what it’s like. I’m totally out of it. In fact, you could have made me your plaything while I slept, and I’d never have known.”
“In your dreams, vampire.”
“Hmm, maybe. You did admit you were ogling.”
“I admitted no such thing. Besides, if you’re so vulnerable, why would you allow me in the room with you?”
Vincent shrugged. “Because Raphael trusts you.”
“Raphael doesn’t even know me. The job came from Cynthia Leighton.”
“Trust me, querida, Leighton and Raphael are one and the same. You’re here because Raphael wants you here.”
“He’s not a god, you know.”
“No, not a god. But he is one scary vampire.”
Lana studied him in the glow of the dash lights, then turned away to stare at the darkness outside the front window. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of being manipulated by anyone like that, especially not an über powerful vampire whose abilities she couldn’t hope to comprehend.
“You owe me an answer,” she said, abruptly tired of contemplating things she didn’t understand.
“An answer to what?” he asked absently.
She turned to face him. “I asked how and when you became a vampire and you promised you’d finish the story tonight.”
He slanted his gaze in her
direction, holding it long enough that she grew a little nervous. They were going close to 100 miles an hour. Granted, they seemed to be the only vehicle on the road, but still.
“All right,” he said abruptly and faced forward once more. “Where did we leave off?”
“You and your brother had just been attacked. You’d been shot.”
Something an awful lot like sadness swept over Vincent’s expression and he sighed. “That was the beginning . . . and the end.”
Chapter Eight
Texas, 1876
VINCENT WOKE TO overwhelming pain. Every length of muscle, every inch of bone in his body ached, and his blood was like fire.
“The pain will fade,” a man’s voice said.
Vincent tried to respond, tried to turn his head to see the speaker, to jump up and defend himself, but his muscles wouldn’t cooperate. He lay nearly flat on his back, his head propped up against what felt like rocks. There was a fire burning, though he had no clue if it was the same one he and his brother had been sitting at when they’d been ambushed.
Memory of the attack gave a new urgency to his fears. John had been shot, too. Where was he?
Vincent finally managed to twist his head around, nearly blinded by the brightly burning flames, straining to see into the darkness beyond. But he was unable to find whoever had spoken.
“Where’s my brother?” he asked, shocked at the rough sound of his own voice.
“He was gravely injured,” the stranger responded.
Vincent’s heart clenched and he struggled uselessly. “Is he dead?” he croaked.
“He’s recovering, as you are, although not so rapidly.”
“Who are you? Come around where I can see you.”
Vincent (Vampires in America Book 8) Page 9