by Lori Foster
Maybe it was too soon to take Katie, but he could have this woman with no more effort than ten seconds of concentration.
She blinked up at him, tottering on her heels. “I would be doing better if you would fuck me.”
“I would be happy to,” he told her with a smile, letting go of his necklace. “Lead the way, babe.”
FOUR
WHEN her lunch break came around, Katie told her boss she was sick and needed to go home. She couldn’t take the strain of wearing a fake smile and pretending she was perfectly fine for one more second. He wasn’t happy with her, but he let her go when she feigned retching sounds and slapped her hand over her mouth.
Hurrying to the elevator, Katie bit her fingernail and thought about calling Nick. Nick would have advice and would calm her down. He was like a big brother to her, and was responsible for saving her life when she had been shot and almost killed during the Russian Revolution. He had turned her to vampire and provided for her for many years.
But he was at work himself, since he was a night bodyguard for Roberto Donatelli, vice president of the Vampire Nation. Which meant that Peter—who was at best a brat, at worst mentally unstable—was up in their suite of rooms with Kelsey Columbia, his loosely termed babysitter. Kelsey wasn’t all that bright from what Katie could tell, and Peter was more insane adult than thirteen-year-old child, but Katie suspected that the babysitting arrangement kept them both from getting in trouble.
In any case, she didn’t want to encounter either one of them, so while she decided she would go to her own room, she hoped like hell that Peter wouldn’t sense her presence next door and decide to drop by for a chat. Pushing the button a second time for the elevator, she waited impatiently, wanting to be alone.
God, why did Michael have to show up? Why did he have to be as beautiful as he’d always been? Even more so than that, why did he still have any effect on her? Her words may have been repellent, but her miserable, lonely little heart had wanted to fling her arms around him and kiss the snot out of him.
“Going up?”
Katie jumped. Shit, the bastard had just walked right up next to her while she’d been lost in thoughts about same-said bastard. “Not if you are.”
“Maria.” He held up his hand as she opened her mouth to protest the use of her former name. “Sorry. Katie. I just want to talk to you. I’ve been looking for you for nearly a century. After everything we shared, can you at least give me five minutes?”
That made all thoughts of his cuteness and the taste of his sexy lips flee. Was he freaking serious? She knew precisely what they had shared, and it had obviously meant way more to her than it had to him. “Excuse me? I don’t owe you jack shit, buddy.”
The elevator door had opened and a couple exiting glanced at her curiously as her voice rose in agitation, but Katie ignored them. She moved forward, intending to go up in the elevator and into her room, slamming the door in his face if she had to. She could not deal with this, not knowing that he was the one who had alerted the Bolsheviks as to her family’s location, which had resulted in their imprisonment and death. Not knowing that he had also been responsible for the theft and sale of her family’s most prized possessions to line his pockets and protect his sorry ass from the new regime wresting power from them.
Michael’s eyes narrowed, his chin set. “Oh, no? You don’t owe me a thing? How about a goddamn explanation as to why you’re so clearly angry with me when as far as I knew, even when we were separated physically we were still together emotionally. We never broke off our relationship, you were just taken away from me.”
Yeah, when his henchmen came and collected her and tossed her in prison. Anger coursed through her as she turned around to face the front of the elevator.
“Don’t play stupid with me, it’s totally unattractive on you.” Katie hit the button for her floor, patting her pocket to make sure she had her room key.
“Did something happen that I’m supposed to know about? Because I’m totally in the dark here.” He hit the pause button, and the elevator ground to a halt.
“What the hell?” Katie hit the button to start it up again. “You’re psychotic.”
“You’re the one acting insane.”
The elevator opened at her floor. “You’re not following me to my room,” she informed him.
“Yes, I am.”
Somehow she had known he was going to say that. “I’m going to call security again. How did you get back into the casino anyway?”
Following her down the hall, Michael said, “I have two talents—I move quickly, and I’m very charming.”
Katie made the mistake of glancing over at him. Oh, she knew he was charming. It was the very first thing she’d realized about him after she’d finished drooling over his looks and had first spoken to him all those years ago. He could charm the skin off a snake. Or in her case, the panties off a princess. Bastard. She just couldn’t use that word enough to describe him.
“Well, why don’t you move quickly and charmingly back to the elevator and get the hell out of my life?”
She stopped in front of her door, and Michael ground to a halt beside her.
He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Explain this anger to me. What happened? The last time I saw you, we were dancing in the garden at the summer palace. You looked stunning that night, your skin and lips and hair perfect, your smile and eyes filled with love for me. I kissed you good night under the moonlight, do you remember that?”
Katie crossed her arms across her chest, her heart beating unnaturally fast. She wanted to run, wanted to smack him, make the flow of words from his mouth stop, but she just stood mute, immobile.
“I had just given you an orgasm behind the copse, do you remember that? I slid my hand under your gown and when you came, I covered your cries with my own mouth, and it was the most amazing feeling to give you that pleasure, to share that night with you.” His hand reached out and brushed her hair back, his dark eyes mesmerizing. “Please tell me you remember, my love.”
She remembered. She remembered everything between them, every glance, every smile, every word. Every kiss. Every touch and every sigh of pleasure he had coaxed from her. After all this time, she remembered. She had been in love, hopelessly and passionately in love, and he had betrayed her.
“That was then, this is now,” she said, striving for flippant but sounding more than a little hysterical.
Pulling her room key out of her pocket, she tried to insert it in the lock, but her hands were shaking too badly to align it correctly.
Michael hadn’t responded to her words, but he was still standing there, watching her fumble. Wanting more than anything to get into her room and be alone to scream or cry, whichever came out first, Katie finally got the key card in, only to pull it out and see that the light was red, not green, and that the door was still locked.
“Shit.” She must have pulled it out too quickly.
“Let me help you.” Michael reached for the key card.
Katie yanked it out of his reach, irrationally irritated with the fact that he would just step in now, over something as stupid as a key card, when she had needed him all those years ago, damn it. Needed him there when she was terrified to die, grieving for her lost future, and nursing a broken heart. Where the hell had he been then?
“No, I’ve got it.” She stuck the key card in and had the same negative result.
“Just let me help you.” Michael touched the card, intending to take it out of her hand.
Katie held on to it. “No.”
Michael pulled harder and they engaged in a ludicrous tug-of-war over the stupid room key.
“Let go!” she yelled.
“No. Let me help you, goddamn it.”
“No.” They were both pulling so hard now that their arms were springing back and forth like a saw. They narrowed their eyes at each other, neither intending to give in despite the ridiculousness of it.
With their vampire strength the
y could yank incredibly hard, and when Michael gave an extra hard tug, he pulled the plastic from her hand. The freedom from her resistance sent his elbow catapulting back into the wall, sinking a solid three inches into the drywall.
He couldn’t get it out.
Katie watched him turn around and remove his elbow with his other hand, swearing the whole time, and she bit her lip.
Now that was funny.
Considering the glare he shot her, he obviously didn’t agree.
Which made Katie actually laugh out loud.
Too bad vampires couldn’t be captured on film. She’d love a snapshot of this for posterity.
Michael in Wall, from the Bastard series.
She laughed even louder.
MICHAEL had no idea what exactly was so riotously funny. He had his elbow stuck in the hotel hallway wall, and for what? So he could claim possession of Katie’s room key?
They were both acting insane, and he had no idea how they had gotten to this point or how to get them back out of it.
Katie knew, or thought she knew, something, and as a result she was angry with him. Unfortunately, he had no clue what it was he had allegedly done that had made her this upset with him, and it was infuriating that she wouldn’t just tell him.
After he retrieved his elbow, he crammed her key into the slot, relieved to see the green light blink on. He shoved the door and held it open for her.
“Feel free to enter whenever you’re done laughing at me.”
Her laughter cut out. “You’re not coming in.”
Michael sighed. He didn’t know what else to do or say. “Fine. I guess I can’t make you tell me what’s bothering you.”
She didn’t answer, but her hand went to the necklace she was wearing, and she pulled it out from under her shirt, moving the gold piece back and forth on the chain in a subconscious gesture.
Michael did a double take. He knew that necklace. “How long have you been wearing that?” he asked her.
“Huh?” Katie glanced down at her chest. “Oh, a couple of days. My brother found it with some old stuff of his and he was going to pitch it, so I rescued it. It was my mother’s, you know.”
The softness that came into her voice when she mentioned the tsarina made Michael’s heart break all over for her. Maybe that was where the anger came from, even if directing it at him was misplaced. Katie had watched her family die. Maybe she was afraid to love, afraid she would lose him again, like she had lost her parents and her sisters.
“I know,” he said softly. “I remember.”
Only it was more than just a showy piece of jewelry.
Its appearance around Katie’s neck a mere two days earlier explained the sudden movement of Rasputin. That was no coincidence.
Michael now knew why the former holy man had come to Vegas, and he needed to talk to Sergei about what they should do about it, and how to protect Katie.
But first he would leave the woman he loved with another reminder of her past.
“I brought something for you,” he told her. “I’ve been saving it for when I would see you again.” He ran his thumb over her cheek, swallowing hard at the feel of her softness beneath his touch-deprived fingers. Michael dropped his hand and reached for his pants pocket.
“If you whip out your penis, I’m screaming,” Katie said.
That made Michael laugh. “No, that’s not what I had in mind, but I can arrange that if you’d like.” His cock would gladly leap out of his pants, given that he’d had an erection since the minute he’d spotted her behind the blackjack table.
“No, thanks.” She gave a rueful smile. “And I guess if I think about it, I doubt you’ve been saving your penis until you could see me again.”
He actually had, though she would never believe him, not given her reaction to him so far. But he did tell her, “I’ve been saving a lot of things for you.”
She just rolled her eyes, though her cheeks were unnaturally pink for a vampire.
Deciding not to push his luck, and needing to talk to Sergei, Michael pulled the tiny enamel box out of his pocket and put it in her hand. “I believe this is yours.”
Her expression puzzled as she looked down at the elaborate box in her hand, and then her head snapped up, recognition in her eyes. “Michael … how … why … ?”
“I’ll explain later. Just remember that I’ve never stopped loving you. Not for one minute of one day.” He handed her his room key. “I’m in fifteen-twenty. Call or come see me anytime you want.”
Katie didn’t speak, but she did accept the card with a nod.
“And stay away from Rasputin,” he told her, before moving down the hall and forsaking the elevator for the stairs. Five floors was nothing to a vampire, and he was in a hurry.
FIVE
“ know what he wants,” Michael told Sergei, pacing in his hotel room. “Katie has the necklace. The one with the blood in it, the one Rasputin gave her mother.”
Sergei was always so calm, sometimes it irritated Michael. Now was one of those times.
“Ah,” Sergei said mildly. “That makes sense. That’s how he knew Katie was here in Vegas. That vial contains the power to reveal the thoughts of the person wearing it. I imagine he’ll try to get it back.”
Michael stared at his longtime friend, sitting on the couch in his khaki pants and golf shirt, his stylish glasses sliding down his nose. “Yes, I imagine he will. And we have to stop him, damn it. I don’t want him anywhere near Katie and I don’t want him to have any more power than he already does.”
“I agree.”
There it was again. That annoying nonchalance. “Don’t you even care? Don’t you want this to end? We’ve been tailing this bastard for almost a century and you act like it’s no big deal. Like it’s been a drop in the bucket of time.”
“It has,” Sergei said with a shrug. “We’re going to live forever, Michael. This is a job to me. And when Rasputin is dead or emasculated of his power, I’ll find another one. There’s no point in being emotional about it.”
Michael stared at him in disbelief. “I am emotional about it. I’m sorry. This man manipulated the politics of our country, influencing our tsarina to the point that he probably contributed to the revolution. He has spent his life engaged in everything unethical and immoral he could get his hands on, including running a porn empire that abuses children. He disgusts me to the point where I cannot wait until he has breathed his last breath, and now he is trailing the woman I love, and I have no doubt he will stop at nothing to get the vial from her.” He forced himself to unclench his fists. “I am emotional about it and I am not going to apologize for it.”
“No one said you had to.”
Michael scoffed, shaking his head. “No. No, they didn’t. But tell me what motivates you … What are you passionate about? What the hell matters to you?”
Sergei just stared at him. “I’m not passionate about anything. And I’m glad I’m not. Look what it’s done to you. You’ve spent ninety years saving yourself for a woman who just rejected you. I have no interest in that kind of pain.”
It wasn’t like he was particularly fond of it either. But he wouldn’t take it back, and he didn’t regret devoting his immortal life to finding Katie, even if she hadn’t given him a warm welcome. He would never, ever regret loving her, and he would never stop loving her.
“Then I guess we can agree to disagree. I can’t live without passion and purpose. I can’t separate emotion from motive. Now, will you please go and make sure that Rasputin is nowhere near Katie? I need to sit and think. I need a plan to divert his attention from her.”
“Sure.” Sergei stood. “No offense, Michael. I’m not criticizing you.”
“I know.” Michael tried to give him a smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. “You’ve always been much more mercenary than me, and you have the bank account to prove it.”
He meant it as a joke, since his acquaintance with Sergei went back to the days when he had hired him to help execute Rasputin, b
efore any of them had understood the world of the undead, and that Rasputin was one of them, a vampire. Their assassination attempts had been unsuccessful, and in the end had resulted in both of them becoming vampires themselves, but Michael knew Sergei had never been involved for politics or love of country. It had been for money, and Michael would never truly comprehend that.
“That’s true. I admit it, and I’m not ashamed of it. If I’m going to live for eternity, I’m damn well not going to do it in poverty.”
All Michael wanted was to live his life with Katie. Feeling a wave of sorrow and anger washing over him, he turned and headed to the mini-fridge in the hotel room. He had a few bags of blood in there, and he needed the distraction, the tinny taste of satisfaction in his mouth.
“I’ll catch up with you later. Thanks. Thanks for everything.”
He did owe Sergei a thank-you. The conversation had cemented for him that he would keep trying to talk to Katie until he got a straight answer from her.
She was his—his best friend, his soul mate, his destiny, his past and his future, and he wasn’t going to rest until she agreed with him.
KATIE closed the door to her suite behind her and bent over, giving in to the weakness in the knees she’d been fighting against since she had first heard Michael’s voice a mere hour ago.
Just sixty minutes had passed, and it felt like her entire existence, her comfortable, predictable immortal life, had been turned ass over tail. She never should have tempted fate by complaining about boredom, because this form of excitement was guaranteed to either break her heart all over again or make her vomit in her own mouth. Neither a pretty option.
And the most irritating thing of all was that she’d wanted all these years to tell Michael exactly what she thought of him and his deceptions, and she hadn’t gotten one eloquent and scathing line of her speech out. All she’d done was snipe at him and fight with him over her damn room key like a couple of dogs with a chew toy.
It was all just wrong. So damn wrong.
Lifting her hand, she studied the enamel box, covered in a red-and-green floral pattern, the bottom a burnished gold. It had been her mother’s, meant for storing her medicinal powders. Her father had brought it back from France for her, an expensive little trinket that her mother had kept on her vanity.