She bit back a groan. “Are you going to answer my question?” she asked, managing—just—to keep her voice cool and businesslike. “If you can stay awake in this light, can you go outside?”
“I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said, giving her calculating look, but then he shrugged. “No, sunlight is sunlight, whether from an edge or the whole thing. It’s only the sleep I can defer. Regrettably, even that time is short, so I can’t seduce you as you deserve. But we do have time to make out if you’d like.” His expression was perfectly innocent . . . and it didn’t fool her for a moment.
Lana gave him a dark look, which turned speculative as she considered not only what he’d said, but how he’d said it. “Your English is very good, you know,” she commented. “Colloquialisms like that one, make out, are the most difficult thing to learn.”
Vincent stretched his arms over his head, then laced his fingers and leaned back, his muscles flexing enticingly. He had to know what he looked like, had to be doing that on purpose.
“My lieutenant, Michael, is American,” he said, settling in. “Born and raised in California, and not that long ago. He’s been mine less than twenty years. His Spanish is quite good by now, but he still prefers American entertainment—television and movies, sports, too. And between us, we always speak English. It helps keep our language skills current.”
“Well, it’s working.”
“Michael will be gratified to know that.” His eyes drooped and he gave her a sleepy smile. “My apologies, querida. We’ll have to save the making out for later tonight.”
His arms dropped to his sides and he slid down on the bed and rolled onto his stomach. And then he was gone.
“Vincent?” Lana called, just to be sure. But there was no response.
She tiptoed over to the bed, then wondered why the hell she was tiptoeing. She stood there, admiring the physical perfection of Vincent’s back—the muscles and tendons and the ripple of his spine, the upper curve of his tight butt. They were right out of an anatomy textbook. Feeling like a perv for staring, Lana quickly pulled the sheet up to his waist, but no farther. It was going to get even hotter before the day was over. She resisted the strong urge to drop a good-night kiss on his shoulder, and turned away, going over to her duffel and stripping down to her skin.
When she finally stepped into the shower, she discovered that, as in most of the other places they’d stayed, the water pressure was shit. But the water was hot and plentiful, so she took her time, washing away the sweat of a day spent hiking up and down hills, and hanging around in that horrible concrete box of a prison. She even took the time to shampoo and condition her long hair.
By the time she opened the bathroom door and peeked out to be sure Vincent hadn’t moved, she felt a thousand times better. Walking naked to her duffel, she considered her options. If she was sensible, she’d get fully dressed and sleep on top of the covers as she’d done at Marisol’s. But it was so very hot in this room, and Vincent wouldn’t know the difference as long as she got up and dressed before he woke for the night. She could set the alarm on her cell phone—which was fully charged since she and Vincent had taken turns charging their phones in the SUV on the drive here—to wake her well before sunset. And she had brought along a pair of silky pajama shorts and a tank top to sleep in, never thinking that she might be sharing a bed with anyone.
Still trying to convince herself, she went back into the bathroom and combed out her long hair, taking the time to dry it thoroughly and probably doubling the motel’s monthly electric bill in the process. And, as it turned out, it was that which decided her. By the time her hair was dry, it was like a warm blanket against her back. And, combined with the stifling air in the room, there was no way she was going to get fully dressed, not if she wanted to sleep. And she really needed to sleep.
So, after verifying the precise time of sunset on the schedule she’d downloaded to her phone, she set the alarm, pulled on her cool shorts and tank top, and slipped under the surprisingly clean-smelling sheets.
She exhaled a long, relieved breath when her head hit the pillow, and, before she could draw the next one, she was asleep.
Chapter Twelve
VINCENT WOKE TO the sound of Lana’s even breathing as she slept next to him. He opened his eyes. She was on her side, her back to him, so close that the firm swell of her butt would press against his thigh if she breathed too deeply, so close that if he moved his head the tiniest bit, he could bury his face in the clean scent of all her beautiful hair. He shifted carefully onto his side, and her hair caressed his skin like warm silk. He raised himself onto one elbow and froze at the sight of a bare shoulder, at the gleam of her skin in the low light from the cable box’s LED. Pinching the sheet between two fingers, he tugged it slowly downward and sucked in a long breath. This wasn’t her usual armor of T-shirt and jeans. She was wearing a pair of tiny, blue satin shorts, cut high enough to bare her entire shapely thigh. And with it, a stretchy tank top that outlined the swell of her round breasts, her nipples twin peaks of enticing color beneath the thin white fabric.
Vincent ate her up with his eyes as the copper glow of his hunger touched the sheen of her skin. Was he made of stone that she expected him to resist this? She wasn’t even pretending to put distance between them. At Marisol’s, she’d slept fully dressed and on top of the covers, and that had been a huge bed. This bed was barely big enough for the two of them, and yet she’d chosen to wear next to nothing and press the tempting curve of her ass right up against his side.
A flash of light caught his attention and he moved with vampire swiftness. In the blink of an eye he’d identified the source, reached across her, and disabled the sound on her cell phone before it could ring.
He looked down at the phone and smiled. So that was it. She’d set an alarm for what some data source had told her was sunset, thinking to be up and dressed before he woke. He’d told her he could remain awake past the official sunrise. She’d obviously failed to draw the corollary between sunrise and sunset and realize he would wake sooner also.
His smile broadened as he dropped the phone onto his side of the bed then lowered his head to draw in her sweet, warm scent. She was unusual, his Lana. A woman who was smart and courageous enough to sneak into the compound of a drug lord in order to rescue a vampire she barely knew, and generous enough to feed that vampire her own blood, even though she’d probably never even considered doing such a thing before. A bounty hunter by profession, she was armed to the teeth and accustomed to taking down fugitives, sometimes dangerous and much larger than she was, in the course of her business. But for all that, Lana was all woman, with satiny, sweet-smelling skin, and a whole lot of warm, silky hair that he wanted to wrap around his fist and hold on to as he pounded deep into the wet heat between her thighs.
He dipped his nose into the curve of her neck and inhaled deeply. He could smell the delicate bouquet of her blood, could hear it rushing through the veins beneath her skin. He barely touched his lips to the swell of her jugular, hearing the change in her breathing and knowing she would soon wake and slip away from him. He brushed her hair back with his cheek and had just begun to put some space between them when she gave a soft moan that shot straight to his dick. He held his breath as she lifted her hand and reached over her shoulder to cup the back of his head, caressing him, urging him to come closer. Vincent bit back a growl of possession. His tongue slipped between his teeth to taste the sweet saltiness of her neck, a taste he remembered from the previous night when he’d awakened in the human prison, a taste that had his fangs emerging hungrily, that hardened his cock even further until the tip was pushing into her silk-clad hip.
“Vincent,” she whispered and rolled over to meet him, lifting her face to his kiss, her lips soft and full, her tongue hesitant as it slid into his mouth, scraping the edges of his fangs.
Vincent did growl then, soft and low, as he deepened
their kiss, sucking her tongue into his mouth, tangling it with his own as he caressed her lips, moving slowly, luxuriously. Vincent loved to kiss a woman, love the glide of their soft lips against his, the taste of their mouths. There was little better than that first touch of a woman’s mouth, the first kiss that told him so much about her. Was she a hesitant lover, was she passionate, insecure, confident?
Lana Arnold was both. A woman of deep passion who was afraid to give too much, afraid to surrender control. But then, he’d known that before he’d ever touched her. The kiss was just a delicious dot on the exclamation point of what he already knew about her.
And he wanted more.
He wrapped the fingers of one hand around her hip and pulled her into the curve of his body, letting her feel the hard length of his arousal, covering her with his much greater weight.
“Vincent,” she whispered again, her body undulating against him, her fingers twisting in his hair.
And then her eyes flashed open and she froze.
Fuck. Vincent realized in a rush that she’d been asleep. Dreaming of him, maybe—probably—but definitely more than half asleep. And she wasn’t happy to wake up in his arms.
“Vincent?” she said in a very different tone of voice, her cheeks flushing hot with embarrassment in the instant before her hand dropped away and she rolled out of bed.
“What was . . .” she started to ask, then, belatedly, seeming to remember what she was wearing, rushed over to the cheap dresser and bent over her duffel to dig out some clothes. “I didn’t mean, I mean . . . I was asleep . . . dreaming. Not of you, but . . .”
Vincent relaxed against the pillows and admired the view as the tiny, satin shorts pulled up to reveal the swell of one firm cheek. He drew in the fragrance of her arousal. Yeah, sure, he’d rather have been buried in her pussy right about now, but the view was nice, and it gave him great pleasure just to know that Lana Arnold wanted him badly enough that she was dreaming about him. Which meant he’d have her before long.
Lana clutched her clothes to her chest and escaped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
Vincent took her cell phone and placed it back on the bedside table where she’d put it, so she wouldn’t suspect anything. Then he lay back and stroked himself off, listening to Lana in the bathroom and imagining slipping up behind her and pulling those pretty, little shorts aside, sliding his cock into her wet and ready pussy, then fucking her until she screamed.
He came with a groan, and a smile on his face.
“I’M SORRY ABOUT . . . before. I was still asleep,” Lana said, pretending to be engrossed in packing her clothes. She was too mortified to look Vincent in the face. It would have been easier if she could have claimed that he’d taken advantage of her, that she hadn’t wanted him. But she knew it wasn’t true. She’d been dreaming about him, about exactly what they’d been doing when she finally woke up. Dreaming of rolling over to find Vincent’s powerful body crushing her into the mattress, his knee between her legs, spreading her thighs as he made love to her with his mouth. In her dream, she’d known that was just the beginning of what he’d do to her, and she’d welcomed that knowledge.
But then she’d woken up and realized it was more than a dream. Still, she’d been tempted to let it continue. But Vincent had sensed the change in her awareness almost before she did, and he’d registered her surprised reaction. And, damn it, he’d stopped. Just once, she’d have liked him to be a jerk. He’d be so much easier to resist if he was a jerk.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he assured her, zipping his bag and heading past her to the door. “You were dreaming—”
She thought he was going to let it go at that, but while he wasn’t a jerk, he was still Vincent.
“—of me,” he added, leaning down to whisper the words into her ear as he passed by, his breath warm, tickling as it brushed aside a few hairs that had escaped her braid.
Lana shivered. She’d never wanted anyone the way she wanted Vincent. She was a grown woman, twenty-nine years old, for God’s sake. Dave Harrington might have been her first, but he sure as hell hadn’t been her last. She’d had good lovers and bad, some tender, some . . . not. But she’d never experienced the kind of sheer, burning desire that she felt for Vincent.
She straightened, lifting her duffel as Jerry emerged from the adjoining room. He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn the day before, because he didn’t have anything else. Lana reminded herself to ask Vincent to stop somewhere so Jerry could shop. But despite the wrinkled and dirty clothing, Jerry looked fresher and more relaxed, and he’d obviously showered.
“Good evening, Lana.”
“Hey, Jerry. Did you sleep well?”
“I did, thank you.”
“Sorry about the lack of air conditioning. But at least there was a bed, huh?”
“Those things don’t matter. What matters is that for the first time in two years, I woke without fearing for my life.”
Lana looked at him in dismay.
“Vincent did that. I woke and I knew I was safe.” He gave her a smile tinged with sadness, then continued past her and out the door.
She stared after him. He was right. Vincent had done that. He’d freed Jerry from a very long life of horrible servitude. She sighed. The evidence was piling up, and it was confirming that Vincent wasn’t a jerk.
Man, she was so totally screwed.
Chapter Thirteen
“SO, JERRY,” VINCENT said as they drove away from the hotel, “what can you tell me about this Salvio Olivarez?”
“I think he was made vampire around the same time I was. He was a captain with the Mexican Federal Police before that.”
“What’s his so-called master’s name, do you know?”
“Domingo Poncio, but I don’t know if that’s his real name.”
“Probably not,” Vincent commented. “Those guys generally use street names. What does he do for the cartel?”
“He tortures people, and then kills them. For information mostly. Sometimes, he eliminates rivals, although not always. As least that’s what Salvio told me. But our conversations were short and rarely private. Usually only a few words exchanged when our masters were too busy with their own business to pay attention to us.”
“Does Poncio have an army? Guards of his own?” Lana asked.
“My impression was that he worked alone, except for Salvio, of course. Salvio is his favorite weapon.”
Vincent growled audibly.
“He must have security in place, though,” Lana said, glancing at Vincent. “I can’t believe we’ll find him sitting in his house all alone except for one vampire.”
“I agree,” Vincent said, just as his cell phone rang. Popping a Bluetooth receiver into his ear, he answered. “Yo, Michael.” He listened briefly, then said, “All right, we have a pickup to make first, but that should be finished by the time you get here. Call when you’re on the ground.” He listened some more, then nodded at whatever his lieutenant was saying. “See you soon.”
He disconnected and said, “Michael’s on his way with a couple of guys, but it doesn’t sound like we’re going to need him to deal with Poncio.”
“I still don’t think—” Lana objected.
“But . . .” Vincent continued, giving her a look that said he wasn’t finished. “We’ll scope out Poncio’s place, get the lay of the land, check out his security. If Jerry’s right and there’s no one but Salvio, we’ll go in. If we need reinforcements, we’ll wait ’til Mikey gets here.”
“Why not just wait for—”
“I don’t like waiting.”
“If I may, sir,” Jerry interrupted from the back. “We may not require additional fighters for Poncio, but I believe we will for Carolyn’s master.”
“Carolyn?” Vincent repeated. “Carolyn who?”
“Sir, I . . .”
Lana turned in her seat to look back at Jerry, wondering at his sudden hesitation. He’d been so forthcoming up to this point, so soldierly in his responses to every question asked, especially if it was Vincent doing the asking. And yet suddenly, he seemed unable, or unwilling, to face either of them directly, lowering his eyes and turning to look out the window instead.
“Jerry?” she asked, her stomach tightening with a sick feeling.
“Carolyn was another vampire,” he said, meeting her stare at last. “I don’t know her last name. We saw each other frequently, but she rarely spoke. I think . . .” He paused and his jaw tightened in obvious discomfort as he shifted his gaze away from Lana and met Vincent’s gaze in the mirror instead. “Sir, I cannot be sure—”
“Out with it,” Vincent growled.
“I believe her master is using her for something other than enforcement.”
Vincent’s fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard that Lana worried it would crack. But all thoughts about the damned steering wheel were blown away when Vincent’s rage blasted through the inside of the SUV like an explosion, swelling bigger and bigger until she thought the windows would burst.
“Sex?” Vincent ground out, his voice so deep and guttural that she could barely make out that one word.
“Yes, sir,” Jerry confirmed miserably. “Her master and others.”
“God damn it,” Vincent snarled. “I will destroy that son of a bitch.”
“Jerry?” Lana said, twisting in her seat to face him. “You said we’d need more than the three of us for Carolyn. Why?” She spoke quietly, asking the rational question in an attempt to defuse Vincent’s anger, as understandable as it was. The very idea of what had happened to Carolyn made Lana want to throw up. She’d been raped over and over again while helpless to resist her master’s orders. That was beyond fucking sick.
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