BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset)

by Parker, Kylee

  “You mean the blood of a vampire?”

  “I do.”

  Claude didn’t like talk of vampire’s. The undead and the shifters had a war a few years back and the undead had cleared the city of all but a handful of shifters. In Claude’s desperate opinion he wished there hadn’t been a winner at all. He wished they were all gone from his city.

  He set the vial back down carefully, raising his dark brown eyes. “What are you really, Angela?”

  She laughed, once again airy and magical. “I’m whatever I need to be at the moment.” She moved from behind the counter and stood before Claude. With the heels she had on, she was almost eye to eye with him.

  “Tell me why the stone is so dangerous.” He whispered.

  “If a mark is left on human skin by it, the human touched becomes something else.” She held up a finger to stop the onslaught of words ready to pour from his open mouth. “But, there must be potential there, blood or mind already tainted with the paranormal; otherwise, the person touched just goes mad.”

  Claude licked his lips. The greedy glint in his eyes unmistakable. “Joseph already has a small following.”

  “Based on lies and half-truths. I’m shocked you would be so eager to attach yourself to him.”

  “You talk about potential; well he…”

  “Has none.” She said sharply. “Unlike the girl who’s with the shifter.”

  Again the greed. “What kind?”

  “If I’m right, she could be the most powerful witch this city has seen in a century.”

  “More powerful than you?”

  Angela smiled slowly, sending a chill through Claude’s already aching bones. “I am much more than just a witch.”

  Sinclair’s eyes stung and she yawned again. They had watched from the shadows to see if Joseph and his woman would exit the hole in the wall business they had followed him into for over two hours. Niall crossed back over to her side of the street, with a frown marring his features.

  “He had to have gone out the back, Sinclair. Let’s just go back to the hotel.”

  “Whatever.” Sinclair mumbled. Her feet ached and she had a small head ache threatening at the base of her skull. Bourbon Street was still a flutter of activity, but it had lost some of the allure for her.

  They walked in silence to the hotel and took the stairs at the slow pace to their room.

  “Do you want a drink from the machine?”

  “Bottled water. Two.” Sinclair sat on the couch with a plop, opening her bag to look for her bottle of Tylenol.

  Niall sensed someone had been there again, but once more it was too faint of an imprint for him to identify. He shrugged it off, but checked the bathroom and in every nook and cranny of the suite before going down for Sinclair’s water.

  He felt the same twinge at the base of his skull, like he was being watched, all the way down to the drink and ice machine, and all the way back up. The weirdest part was the way it felt like someone was behind then beside him as he traveled back to the room.

  Niall could hear Sinclair talking as he pushed the door open. She was on her cell phone and had her head in her hands.

  “No, I understand.” She looked up at Niall with troubled eyes, and mouthed the word Carla. “I’ll have to talk to Niall about…” There was a long silence before Sinclair shook her head at empty air. “No, Carla! Don’t take him to one of those people! Let me see what we can find out, ok? Promise me you will just wait until you hear from us, ok?” Sinclair nodded her head and visibly relaxed as she ended the call.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Carla thinks the stone that marked the boy is Voodoo, and she wants to have a Shaman or priest or whatever fix him.”

  “I take it he’s worse?”

  Sinclair leaned back against the couch. “Yes. He keeps chewing his fingers until they bleed and she said he left the house last night to go out and scream at the moon.” Her bottle green eyes were completely round under raised eyebrows. “The moon, Niall!”

  Niall joined her on the couch. “I hate this case.”

  “It’s the first I’ve been involved in, and I hate it too. This stuff is scary, Niall.”

  “It is.” He ran a finger along the edge of her face. He wished they were still out on Bourbon Street, feeling the buzz, while only halfheartedly looking for Joseph Overman. His appearance was fortuitous, but completely a coincidence. The way Sinclair had become completely carefree and happy was a sight to see. He felt like she had been cheated of a nice evening.

  Sinclair turned her head slightly. She didn’t want to look at him directly. The pull towards him was becoming harder to resist. The way he casually took her hand while they were in public had nothing to do with her safety anymore. She was smart enough to recognize that much at least. She wasn’t sure what was happening between them, but it could no longer be ignored.

  “What do you want from me, Niall?” The words lipped out softly while her eyes were trained to his hand playing with the edge of her t shirt.

  “I don’t want anything from you.”

  Sinclair risked a look to his face. His dark features were placid. She wished she could read minds. Maybe if she concentrated hard enough she could. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, attempting to empty her mind as best she could. Sound was the first to go. Her immediate surroundings became a vacuum. Touch was the next. She no longer felt Niall touching her, nor his presence beside her. She was weightless, and it was wonderful.

  Sinclair felt her mind unravel like a flower opening its petals. A whisper, barely there, touched her inner mind.

  Beautiful.

  She fought the urge to recoil, allowing the open petal feeling to come again.

  She could be mine.

  Sinclair’s eyes flew open. Niall was staring at her with an odd expression. He ran his tongue over his lips and exhaled in the same fashion as she had only moments earlier.

  “What just happened, Sinclair?”

  “I…I don’t really know.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  She blushed and tried to lower her eyes, but Niall forced her head back up.

  “Tell me.”

  “I was thinking how I wished I could read minds…so I tried.”

  “What did you hear?”

  Sinclair wanted to forget the whole thing. It was probably a figment of her imagination anyway. Niall’s thumb and forefinger tightened on her chin.

  “Tell me.”

  “I heard the word ‘beautiful’, and then I heard ‘she could be mine’.”

  Niall let go of her chin and sat back, his face incredulous. She read my mind! Niall leaned in to her quickly, forcing her backwards on the little couch. Both of his hands cupped the sides of her face and he kissed her the way a man kisses a woman when he’s claiming her. He was tired of games. He was tired of being alone. He wanted Sinclair. Not just for her looks, or because she was there in the moment. He was choosing her. He was approaching a time in his life when it was imperative that he have a mate, and Sinclair was the end of the line for him.

  Sinclair’s mind spun, and she thought that perhaps her spent buzz from earlier was making an impromptu return. Niall loosened her t shirt and ran a hand under the fabric, tracing the outline of one nipple through the lacy bra. Her body responded and the nipple became rock hard. Niall moaned quietly.

  Sinclair didn’t want to think this through. Thinking was dangerous. This was an opportunity to be loved by a man, even if it was temporary, and she was going to take it. She grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over the top of his head, revealing cut sinewy muscle. He was truly a beautiful man. She allowed her fingertips to touch the ridges of his taut stomach.

  Niall smiled down at her and pulled her up by her wrists.

  “Your turn.” He said and began pulling her shirt up. A slight breeze blew the thin drapes inward at the open French doors. Niall’s head turned sharply. The smell of decay had entered the room. He sensed the unseen presences again. He was
sure there was more than one.

  “What’s wrong?” Sinclair breathed, tugging at the waistband of his jeans. She turned her head to try and see what he was looking at. Her eyes scanned the open French doors and did a double take to the drapes. A man was standing behind each flimsy floor length curtain. They flanked the doors like sentinels. She scrambled from under Niall and stood, her face completely white.

  “What is it?” Niall looked from her to the doors, a frantic desperate feeling clawing its way up his esophagus.

  The men seemed to be made of smoke. One lifted a dark arm and grinned as he laid a finger over his smoke lips to indicate for her to be quiet. The other closed one empty eye in a grotesque wink.

  Sinclair’s scream was the exit music for their fast departure.

  Angela waited patiently for her pet wraiths to return. It had been a risky experiment, but a necessary one. She pushed the hood back from her cowl as they approached. The dark alley where she waited had been touched with her own special blend of glamour. Anyone passing by would see an empty alley with overflowing trash at the other end. No one would bother stepping in for a quick romantic interlude or for any other reason; she had ensured it.

  They breezed into the alleyway and stopped just short of her, both bowed formally causing a trail of smoke like substance to swirl upwards. They weren’t actually made of smoke. Rather it was some type of ectoplasmic material that gave them substance as they roamed the earth doing her bidding. At the moment, there wasn’t any real facial features on them. It took time and energy for them to replicate what they once looked like.

  “Well?”

  The only one who could speak opened his mouth. The sound was thin and nasally. It entered Angela’s mind more than entered her ears.

  She can see us. The shifter cannot. But he senses us.

  Angela smiled with satisfaction. “I knew she was special. The fact that the shifter can sense you bodes well for him. Perhaps I will allow him to live.”

  Angela turned and motioned for her pets to follow, the hood of the cowl returning to the crown of her head.

  Sinclair hadn’t completely unpacked anything from her suitcase, but she threw her cosmetics and toiletries in the bag haphazardly, not even checking screw on tops and lids. Her movements were jerky and disjointed. Niall watched her helplessly, an arm partially extended towards her.

  “Sinclair…”

  “What?” She demanded whirling on him. “Don’t give me that lame bullshit again about how everything is going to be alright, or about how there are things in this world I don’t understand!”

  “I…” He halted his original attempt and clamped his mouth shut. There was nothing to say but those things.

  “After everything we have seen here, you think I don’t already know there are things in this world I don’t understand?” Two tiny bars of wrapped soap, complimentary of the hotel, entered her bag like tiny missiles. “But nothing is going to be alright in this situation!” Hair had escaped from her pony tail and raged around her face as she moved.

  Niall crossed to her and grabbed her face, forcing her to still. He stared into her eyes, forgetting the situation as he sank into the green depths. The admittance to himself that he wanted her, wanted to mate her, had solidified the thought. It was now a reality in his mind. That, for a shifter, made it a reality period.

  “Sinclair…” He whispered. “It will be alright if we’re in it together.”

  She stilled and stared back at him. She felt something let go in her chest, and her mind bent towards him. She was suddenly hyper aware of everything about him. The way he had miniscule silky black hairs that ran the length of his jawline. The way his eyes weren’t perfectly round, but had a slight upturn giving them a slightly almond shape. The way his breath was always sweet to her nostrils, but tainted slightly by a watery odor. She pulled her teeth along her bottom lip slowly.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t want to say anything. Let me show you.”

  Niall let go of her and killed the light. He swept his arm over the edge of the bed, knocking her bag to the floor, its contents spilling in a tight circle around it. Niall took her by the hand and led her to the bed, pushing her down gently.

  Sinclair didn’t object as her clothes began to leave her body. She was grateful for the darkness, but almost wished he had left the bulb blazing. Better he see her for how she really looked now than later. As Niall’s hands found her breasts, she resisted the urge to push him away. He would only deny that he was using her if she voiced her concern. He would only tell her she was beautiful, then take her body anyway. Why not enjoy it? A he lowered his head to one nipple and flicked his tongue across it, she was positive this wasn’t the time to have such a conversation.

  Niall’s mind was filled with images. He was racing ahead of the moment thinking of what kind of home they would have, how many children, and whether or not she would want a large wedding. When she plucked at the button of his jeans and lowered the zipper he stopped and pulled the pants off, her manhood freed and boldly waiting for action. All thoughts of the future were gone as her hand reached for him and began a slow stroking of him. With head back he allowed her to touch him, to explore where ever her hands wanted. When he felt the heat flush his skin he pushed her off her elbows and touched the soft flesh between her legs. He liked how she was partially shaved. The bare skin was like a baby’s. Niall cautiously entered her with two fingers, his thumb rubbing her clitoris. When moisture covered his hand he stopped and leaned over her, kissing her with reverence. This was it. This was the moment he would make her his; forever.

  Sinclair accepted his first thrust, the sting from his size only a momentary discomfort. She soon matched his movements with counter thrusts of her own. For once, she didn’t notice her rounded belly. She didn’t worry about the size of her hips and thighs. They were truly one, moving as one, breathing as one. It was disturbed only by her cry and shudder of climax as he ground down hard and reached his own grand finale.

  Niall held Sinclair against him in the silence. He forced his heartbeat and breathing to match hers, reveling at how wonderful it felt to be entwined with the woman he loved. Loved! After so short a time! He smiled in the darkness.

  Sinclair touched her hips as the hot water ran over her. She had allowed Niall to make love to her. He wanted to join her in the shower, but she had politely refused, pretending she hadn’t seen the hurt look in his eyes. Fear was a hard pill to swallow in the face of such hope. What if the things he had murmured to her had been real? No other man had ever said such things and with the amount of tenderness in which he had. He had actually whispered the words. The dreaded words that she yearned for every day, yet had only been spoken to her in the shallowest of meanings and motives. Yet, she had believed him. It had been a raw moment, punctuated with her weeping silently beside him.

  Niall sat with his hands clasped tightly between his knees. His back was tense and his eyes stayed fixed on a faded patch of carpet. He didn’t know what to think. Sinclair had been hurt so much she now expected it. He could see it in her eyes. He felt it in the way her body tensed when he tried to hold her afterwards. Eventually, they had fallen into a fitful sleep.

  He wanted to reassure her, yet he had no idea how to go about it. He knew how he felt, he had been honest when he said it; why couldn’t she believe him?

  Sinclair stepped silently into the room. She watched Niall raise his face to her, and she caught a glimpse of the torture he was feeling. She couldn’t allow it to affect her. Whatever he thought he felt right now, it wouldn’t last. It never did.

  Sinclair went to the still open French doors and stepped onto the balcony. She felt it odd that after what they had experienced the night before, that they would have left the balcony doors open.

  Sinclair leaned onto the wrought iron railing, arms straight, and her eyes closed. A slight breeze wafted over her in the early dawn light. She opened her eyes to the gray pink light as Niall wrapped his arms aroun
d her from behind. She didn’t tense or try to move out of the embrace; rather, she leaned back into him.

  Niall lowered his head and breathed in the scent of soap and shampoo. He would stand there with her as long as she allowed it.

  “I’m afraid, Niall.”

  “This is a crazy situation, I know, but we’ll get to the bottom of it and go back to Palm Beach and clear your name.”

  “I wasn’t talking about that.” She said softly.

  Niall knew she was about to open up and he didn’t want to rush her. It was precarious. Any word misconstrued would push her further away.

  “About us?”

  “Yes.” She slid her eyes to the side, but didn’t turn to look at him.

  “I understand. You’ve been through a lot of heartbreak.”

  “I have. I just don’t think you really mean what you said to me. I think you were just caught up in the moment. Maybe we are just caught up in this whole situation.”

  Niall turned her gently, forcing her to look at him. Her expression was resigned. She had given up before even trying.

  “I know what I feel, Sinclair. I’m not one to say or do things on a whim.” He smiled lightly. “At least not until I met you.”

  “What does that mean?” Her body stiffened.

  “I find myself doing things here just to see you smile. I didn’t plan to make love to you. It just happened, and I’m glad it did.” Niall licked his lips. This was it. He had to come clean with her right then and there. If she thought later that he had hidden something from her, or lied, the progress he was making would be for nothing.

  “You look like you want to say something.”

  “I do.” Niall took a deep breath and opened his mouth only to snap it shut again as a loud knock sounded at the suite’s door. He shook his head and let go of her. “Stay put, I’ll get it.”

  Sinclair stepped into the doorway of the French doors as Niall opened the door. Carla was standing there in a worn pair of rose colored slacks with a matching button down shirt Sinclair was sure hadn’t been in style since 1970. Her eyes widened as she dragged Gabriel into the room. The child was digging his heels in and grunting. He whipped his head around and bit his great grandmother on the arm before Niall or Carla could stop him. Carla yelped, flinging the boy away from her.