The Ultimate Bite

by Crystal Green

  The animalistic implication both scared her and thrilled her. He was attuned to her, just as much as she was to him. It was a basic link, a turn-on.

  Her clit hardened, her sex dampening, swelling.

  “So I’m on your vamp radar?” she asked in a strained whisper.

  His gaze lit to a wilder green.

  In spite of how much he tried to hide it, she had done what she had wanted to—become more than a passing thing for him. She mattered, lasting beyond what should’ve been a fleeting encounter. In her own way, she was a glint of eternity, an impression that he couldn’t wipe away. Every word he didn’t say just proved it.

  Yet the victory didn’t seem to matter as much as she thought it would. It was…flat. Why?

  She must’ve had a freaky, needy look on her face, because his arms loosened away from his chest and his gaze fell to the ground.

  Don’t let him off the hook, she thought, not knowing why she wanted to push the issue, but having to, anyway. She knew she wanted hope, wanted to know what might’ve happened to Lori, but…there was something else. Something encoded within her that she couldn’t solve.

  “You caught my scent and you came to me,” she said.

  He seemed to be miffed by what he’d done—gone to her instead of where the rogue might show up.

  Why wouldn’t he admit that they’d become more to each other than an easy bite? Why couldn’t she say it loud and clear?

  Then, in a rough voice, he said, “If the rogue were to attack you again, I would blame myself. Do you realize what several lifetimes of guilt feel like? Can you imagine what it is to suffer until you decide to erase its presence in your conscience?”

  Kim moved toward him, only wanting to make him feel better—make herself feel better. He went rigid, his arms returning to their defensive position over his chest.

  “Why are you this way?” she asked. “What have you been through, Stephen?”

  Something like a shadow passed through his gaze, a shard that sliced through color on its dark way. She held her breath, waiting for him to talk, because she was so sure he was about to—

  A car’s tires squealed, and he blinked. And there it was—he was back to being the closed-off mystery she had come to know. Or not know.

  “Why can’t you just tell me?” she asked as the car’s noise faded. Her voice bounced off the empty, concrete spaces. “I’d do my best to understand, even though my life experience is nowhere near yours.”

  “Most of my history is irrelevant to what has transpired between us.” He lowered his gaze on her, once again a little arrogant and a lot intimidating. “All you need to know is that I’ve been a criminal for centuries, not so much different from this rogue. That doesn’t seem to be getting through to you. I have fed off of blood—robbed it, just as I robbed travelers of their valuables. I’m not anything you should embrace.”

  She thought she heard a note of remorse in his tone. “Aren’t you the vampire who’s trying to stop the rogue before it can hurt more women? Tell me—where’s the bad-boy awfulness of that?”

  “I am only doing what I must to survive.” He laughed sharply, gaze trained in the distance. “I am not so noble, at all. You just refuse to see the danger.”

  She thought of what he’d shared with her, mind to mind—bright moments from his mortal life, an exciting robbery scenario designed to fit her fantasies….

  Yet there had always been an undercurrent of nefarious suggestion. She knew highwaymen had been criminals, but they had also been toasted in pubs and called gentlemen. Somewhere along the line, someone had romanticized them.

  Just as she had romanticized The Bite.

  But that didn’t explain everything. She’d gone beyond fantasy and into a place of true danger with him—a place that frightened her because she couldn’t figure it out. If she looked beyond the fantasy and deeper into Stephen—and into herself—that’s where the danger really was.

  Kim tried to steel herself, but she felt more like softened metal over a burning fire. “You want me to see the danger? I wish I didn’t see so much, Stephen. Actually, I don’t know if I want to see any more than I already do.”

  “Kimberly.” He shook his head and relaxed his stance, his eyes losing their smolder. A look that could be defined as sympathy settled over his features. “I don’t know what you’re seeking, but you should not look to me for it.”

  Shouldn’t look to him for it? He’d already made it pretty clear that he couldn’t provide those answers she’d sought about how Lori might be faring, but…There was something besides that. Something that had taken over once she’d learned that he didn’t know much more than she, herself, did about the big picture.

  She held back a wave of melancholy because it would chase away all the distracted passion that fueled her body. But she couldn’t last against it. She wasn’t that strong.

  “You’re the only thing that’s made me feel alive in a long time,” she said. “You bring back…I can’t even explain it.”

  “You test the unknown with me.”

  “I…Yes.”

  A few aisles over, a group hooted and hollered on their way to the casino elevators. Stephen lowered his voice.

  “Why do you look to me for fulfillment, then?”

  She didn’t want to talk about this, but then again, she really did. There’d been nobody else. Nobody who even came close to understanding.

  “Last year, when Lori…” She exhaled. “Nothing made sense anymore. All the explanations for how the world worked—they didn’t apply. It all seemed so senseless, like there wasn’t any grand plan and that all of us had no reason for being here. I felt so…alone. Abandoned.”

  She paused, profoundly unsettled by the sentiment. It’d been the first time she’d admitted that.

  Stephen didn’t say a word, but she could see he was right with her. There was a flickering in his banked gaze, a glow of connection to what she was saying.

  “Do you remember how it was with your brother?” she asked.

  “I was already a vampire when Nathan left this world,” Stephen said. “He was old enough so that his passing wasn’t tragic, but I was new enough to feel the razor of his absence. His death was the first time I realized I would someday lose everything, that the world would march on after each life was extinguished.”

  Just as she had tried to march on.

  Kim walked nearer, but it wasn’t because she wanted to unbutton his shirt or to run her hands over his chest. No, she only wanted to be close. Just…close.

  “What happened after you changed into a vampire, Stephen? Was there relief or…darkness? Are things different than they are during human life?”

  He was already shaking his head. Sadness turned his gaze from green to a muddier shade.

  Unreasonable anger flooded her. Her throat stung.

  “Can you tell me?” she demanded.

  She pushed at him, then balled her hands against his chest in apology. Tears, hot and unwelcome, prickled at her eyes, but she held them back.

  He took her fists into his hands, closing his fingers around them. “I wish I knew, Kimberly, but vampires never touch the beyond. We stay and we linger.”

  She sank against him, closing her eyes.

  Nothing would change. She’d always feel alone, wouldn’t she? There’d always be abandonment.

  Slowly, his arms enclosed her and he rested his cheek against the top of her head. The tears came, seeping into his shirt, but he didn’t seem to mind. Not at all.

  “I do think there is something more than this at some point,” he added so softly she barely heard. “There has got to be something more.”

  She tried to believe him as she held tight to his coat and gave in to the deep-seated misery that had driven her for more than a year.

  Gradually, she realized that Stephen was holding on to her just as tightly.

  AFTER CATCHING himself in such a weak moment, Stephen had pushed into a safer place, setting matters to rights and levelly suggest
ing that Kimberly meet her friends at Mystique while he kept an eye on her.

  It was the only way he could do what he was meant to—continuing the search for the rogue and serving the family who sustained him.

  Yet the diversion did not erase what had transpired between him and Kimberly. It burned like a crucifix held to a vampire’s flesh, though he was not personally familiar with the sensation. Still, he felt scarred and marked on the inside, where he would feel pain all the more.

  They went about their business with focused determination; him hanging back while Kimberly met her League friends to scour the nightclub and question the employees. He lurked in the shadows while combing the club for more clues, yet they all came up empty.

  Nobody but Kimberly had even known he was there and, for a moment, he had felt just as hollow as those shadows, secure once again.

  Then he had seen Kimberly wandering near the veiled club beds, and he knew without a doubt that his old existence wasn’t enough anymore.

  Afterward, she had bid her friends good-night and he’d escorted her back to the Chevy. At the same time, he cursed himself for not being able to let go of her long enough to set off in his own direction.

  Yet, what could he do? In reality, if the rogue wished to be found, he would approach Stephen, himself, correct? That seemed the easiest way to contend with the criminal, although, Stephen was itching to do everything he could to find the other vampire first.

  However, Stephen had the distinct feeling that the rogue was now working through the League just as surely as he had been, and it might be wise to keep the humans near. The attacks on both Kim and Darlene had been no coincidence.

  Just as Kimberly was opening her car’s door, she turned back to him, disappointment in the night’s work obvious in her frown. “How about we go to the construction site?”

  Stephen just stood in place. It was answer enough.

  “Hey, I’m at the end of my rope here.” She jammed her hands on her hips, red hair streaming over her shoulders and catching the stinging, pale garage lights. “We’re getting nowhere.”

  “I’ll be doing everything within my power to keep you away from that site.” The horror of seeing the rogue digging into her neck with his fangs still lingered enough to serrate his words. “Don’t test me on this. Mystique and this casino present somewhat of a challenge to an attacking vampire. That quiet site doesn’t.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, but when she found him to be resolute, she sighed. “Are you going to go there, at least?”

  “I intend to.”

  “All right.” She glanced at her watch. “If I can’t go, too, I should get my butt home instead of to headquarters, where I’ll be totally useless. I’ve got an early shift at work tomorrow and I can’t be calling in sick again.”

  “I wonder if you and the team could, perhaps, refrain from any radio broadcasts, for now,” he said mildly.

  She sent him a tart smile. “You already know the answer.”

  But, when her smile fell and she glanced away, Stephen wondered if she was rethinking the League’s indiscriminate activities. Was she realizing the damage they could do to him?

  A light turned over in his chest, then darkened again.

  Remove yourself, he thought. Survive.

  “I wish I could persuade you to stop them, luv,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows at the light endearment. “Can’t you hypnotize me into obeying your every command or something?”

  He wasn’t about to tell her that she was hard to mentally control unless she had invited him inside her head. It would give her more power over him than she already possessed.

  “I respect your mental privacy,” he said. “So off you go back home.”

  “Off I go.” She hesitated, sending him such a cryptic glance that he could not even begin to decipher it.

  But when he found himself reaching out to touch her hair, he became too caught up in her to think anymore.

  The air seemed to go still as his fingers stroked the fine silk washing down her back. So soft, he thought, wishing he could bury his face against her, wishing the world would stay paralyzed so nothing else could interfere with the here, the now.

  She hitched in a breath, then turned her face into his hand.

  But then a car alarm went off nearby and the moment disappeared.

  He backed away, mortified by his naked want of her. “Travel safe,” he said.

  She tried to say something, cleared her throat, then successfully communicated the second time. “You, too.”

  She smiled, more to herself than at him. Then, as that smile turned into a puzzled frown, she sat, closed the door, then strapped herself into the seat belt, revved the engine and departed with a casual wave.

  Careful to note if anyone was watching—and they weren’t—he took off after her, a blur that would only be seen by another vampire.

  But he didn’t sense any other presence, so he followed her to the unremarkable apartment complex she called home. After he made certain she was safe, he would visit the construction site.

  But only after.

  He met her in the parking lot and, when she invited him into the lobby so he could see her directly to her door, he told himself he needed to make certain the rogue was not trailing her.

  Really, though, Stephen knew that he just wished to stay with her, to satisfy the never-ending hunger that gnawed the lining of his belly.

  A bite, he thought, needing it badly. Not for the blood, but because it was all he could give this woman who made him feel so deceptively alive.

  They rode the elevator to her floor. A short trip, but uncomfortable nonetheless for a vampire who was aching for a taste.

  He was blind to everything but Kimberly as the doors opened to the upper lobby. That is, until they passed the stairwell and two elderly people opened the metal door to enter.

  The man, who had silver, bristly hair and a stout disposition, held out his arms to Kimberly. His companion, a vibrant woman with a bob and a beaming smile, patted Kimberly on the shoulder as she came to hug the man. She was matronly and genuine.

  “Well, well, Miss Kim,” the older man said in an exaggerated late-night whisper.

  An East Coast accent and a hint of alcohol laced the air as Kimberly then hugged the woman with great enthusiasm.

  The couple had been drinking wine. An expensive burgundy, Stephen thought.

  They kept their voices low as they completed their greetings. All too soon, the attention was on Stephen. Yet he knew how to react—humanly.

  “Who have we here?” the woman said.

  “Oh.” Kimberly seemed caught off guard. “Stephen. He’s…well, you know, up here for…fixing my computer.”

  The older woman’s gaze lit up. “Good to meet you, Stephen!” She pumped his hand in greeting.

  The old man merely took stock of Kimberly’s obvious “date.” The scrutiny made Stephen shuffle, then recover. Odd.

  Kimberly motioned to the couple. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Cornish, two people who refuse to take elevators when there’re stairs.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Mr. Cornish said, laughing. “No sense in wasting electricity when I can work off my meals.”

  As a greeting, Stephen bowed his head in respect, mindful that, even though the couple seemed older than he, Stephen was actually far beyond their years. Still, respect was in order.

  “A pleasure,” he said.

  Kimberly seemed very eager to turn the focus away from him.

  “Where were you two night owls this time?”

  Mr. Cornish spent another eternal second gauging Stephen before he smiled, then put a loving arm around his wife. Stephen actually exhaled at the reprieve.

  “It was off to that new restaurant, Umberto’s, near Red Rock Station. Fantastic lasagna Bolognese, Kimberly. They have a late-night jazz show, too.”

  While he chatted, his wife watched him with such affection that Stephen almost felt as if he could not comprehend the existenc
e of it. Emotion ran deep between these two, culled from years of happy living, no doubt.

  Two words raced through him—soul mates.

  Yearning bubbled, but it was not the type that forced his teeth to lengthen or heated his body.

  This was something uncommon and foreign. A vague desire to experience their type of link—one that didn’t require reaching into a prey’s mind.

  He wondered if he could capture its taste with a bite, if he could just…

  He forced his mind to go black. Unacceptable. He survived on blood and didn’t need to bite for any other reason. Certainly, a vampire such as Fegan would disagree—the creator would have attacked the Cornishes merely because he could—but Stephen had developed boundaries over the years. He was no angel, but couldn’t he strive to be less of a devil?

  Besides, true, shared affection was one thing he could never have, not even with a bite. If anyone knew that, it was Stephen.

  Then he felt Kimberly’s gaze upon him, and he found himself turning to her, discovering the only person who could make him believe differently.

  12

  WHEN STEPHEN FINALLY locked gazes with her, Kim felt as if a wind had blown out the windows of her sheltered defenses and rushed straight through her.

  In his eyes, she could see it—he wasn’t as far from humanity as a vampire probably should be. Standing here with the most loving couple on Earth was having the same effect as it usually had on her—the Cornishes made it seem that something more existed for everyone.

  They reminded her of the old Kim—the girl who’d had someone and, therefore, something in her life besides continual restlessness.

  Stephen must’ve realized that he’d let down his barriers, because he straightened his posture, and his gaze seemed to cool. He turned back to the still-chatting Cornishes and donned a polite smile while hearing their opinion about the restaurant.

  Kim wanted to push him, to prod him, to do anything to get another genuine reaction out of him. For a brilliant second, she had seen something that was like a crack in the sky—a glimpse into the world she’d been looking for, a definition of what had been missing from their last intimate encounter.