A Candidate For The Kiss

by Angela Knight

  check we give prospective agents. Then e-mail the data to me. I'll be at the house in Charleston."

  Fitzroy stared at him, gaze sharpening. "Why? What the hell's going on, Archer?"

  "She's a candidate, Fitz."

  "For the team?" He looked horrified.

  "More than that—for the Kiss."

  "You want to make her a vampire?"

  Archer gave him an annoyed look. "Would you hold it down?"

  Fitzroy moved closer and dropped his voice to a hiss. "Shit, Arch, are you getting Alzheimer's? She's a kid. She can't be more'n twenty-five. You can't seriously mean to give her your kind of power. Besides, she's a reporter."

  He said the word in a tone of such deep loathing Archer had to grin. "It's not a dirty word, Fitz."

  "The hell it's not. Look, Arch, this little bimbo makes a living telling morons things they've got no business knowing. And you want to hand her the biggest secret in U.S. history? Why not make a fuckin' sixty-second commercial and run it during the Super-bowl!"

  "Once she joins the team, she won't tell anybody anything." Archer scrubbed both hands through his hair, trying to make his second-in-command understand. "Look, I believe Dana has the strength to become a vampire without going insane. And I have never met anyone else I could say that about in my entire life, including you. That makes her a potential intelligence asset we can't ignore." He looked up and caught his friend in a determined stare. "I have to check her out?'

  Agitated, Fitzroy turned and began to pace. "What if you change her, and she misuses the power?"

  "Then I'll kill her."

  The agent snorted. "Oh, you are so full of shit. You hate hurting women, up to and including psychopathic terrorists. This kid would just look at you with those big gray eyes and you wouldn't be able to lay a finger on her. And we'd all be fucked."

  "I said I'd handle her," Archer snapped. "Look, I'm not going to change her unless I'm sure she'll work, all right? Besides, she may not even agree"

  Fitzroy threw up both hands. "Fine. You do whatever the hell you think best. You always do. But you'd better damn well be right."

  Archer set his jaw. "Don't worry. I know exactly what to do."

  Dana looked up as Archer stalked back into the detective's office and gave her a smoldering look. "Come with me."

  She rose to her feet, eyeing him warily as he strode over to grab her by the elbow. "Where are we going?"

  "You'll find out" Archer pulled her around and propelled her out of the office and down the hall toward the front door.

  "Am I under arrest or what?" Dana tried to set her feet, but his relentless strength kept her moving. "Look, you haven't booked me, which means I haven't been charged, which means you have no right to hold me. I could report you for this. Who's your supervisor?"

  He angled her an amused look. "Don't try to bluff me, Dana. Even if you did file a report, do you really think I'd let anybody take action against me?"

  Damn. She hadn't thought of that. She could scream bloody murder clear to the President, and all Archer would have to do is whisper in the right ear to make it all go away. True, she could go to the press—he couldn't use his psi on everybody – but he could have the right people declare her a nut, and she'd be written off. Maybe even hospitalized.

  A sudden chill skated Dana's spine. He could do anything he wanted to her, and nobody would ever say a word.

  Feeling helpless, she stumbled after Archer as he pushed open the department door and pulled her out into the dark.

  "What are you going to do to me?" Dana licked her dry lips.

  He laughed, a low, seductive rumble. "I don't know yet. I'm still trying to make a list." With a flex of his arm, Archer swung her around the corner of the building. Her foot slipped as a piece of gravel rolled under it, but before she could smash into the brick, his

  big hands caught and steadied her. Then he planted a palm between her shoulder blades and gently pressed her face-first against the rough surface of the wall.

  "Let's start with a frisk, shall we?" Before Dana could jerk back, Archer kicked her feet wide, then moved up behind her. She gasped as he slid his muscular thigh up between her legs until it pressed against her sex, forcing her to ride him. She was just gathering the breath to protest when his big hands began to explore her body as if he owned it.

  "Archer, what the hell are you doing?" she gasped. "One of the deputies could drive up!"

  "It's so dark back here the only one who can see a damn thing is me." His breath gusted warmly against her ear as he dragged her back against his powerful body, then cupped his hands around her breasts. His thumbs strummed her nipples through her shirt. She felt them harden. "Hell, you can't even see what I'm doing, can you? But I can. You've got beautiful breasts, Dana" His tongue flicked out, tested one of the straining cords of her neck.

  "Archer..."

  "Ever been strip-searched?" Archer's voice was so darkly suggestive, she shivered. "How about a body cavity probe? We could play pretty little hooker and bad, bad cop. I'll bet you'd like that."

  Dammit, how did he do this to her? How did he know just the right notes to hit? Thirty seconds, and he had her creaming. It was humiliating. "I'm not interested in playing anything with you," Dana gritted.

  "It's against the law to lie to an agent of the Federal government, Dana." He brought his leg up higher, lifting her off the ground and forcing her sex hard against his thigh. Heat scalded her. "Do it again and I'll have to pull down your pants and spank you."

  It was all she could do not to writhe as she rode his leg. "This isn't right," Dana gasped. "It's just a game to you, isn't it? It's a role. Dominant male."

  "It's what I am," Archer purred in her ear, fingers plucking her nipples through the thin fabric of her shirt. "There are too damn many of you and only one of me. I've got to dominate you or I'm dead."

  He pressed closer until Dana could feel the entire length of his body against her back. She licked her lips as his rigid erection ground against her bottom. "I've got to find out what you need and give it to you, so you won't notice when I steal what I need. And what I need is you spread wide and wet under me, ready for my fangs and cock." He pressed her against the wall until she could feel every thick, powerful inch of him. "And Dana, you're going to give me just what I need."

  "No," she moaned.

  "Oh, yes. Over and over, every way I can think of." Slowly, Archer rolled his hips against her bottom, forcing her to imagine what it would be like to be at the mercy of his power. "On your belly with your ass in the air and your hands cuffed behind you. "Tied spread-eagle to my big tester bed while I lick and taste all that creamy white skin. On your knees, sucking my cock until I shoot into your mouth."

  "I won't!" Dana gasped, hot cream flooding her sex.

  "You will," he retorted, his voice rich with velvet menace, his strong hands kneading her breasts. "Again and again. And you'll love every minute of it while I show you just what a vampire can do to a bound and naked woman."

  "You'll have to use force," she said, trying for toughness.

  "Oh, I will." He twisted her nipples. "Just the way you've always dreamed."

  Shame and excitement stung her. "You don't know a damn thing about my dreams."

  "I know how your heartbeat speeds when I talk about what I want to do to you. And I can smell how wet you are right now. I'd like to take your jeans down and lap you all up while you writhe and beg." He took her earlobe between his teeth and gently bit. "But you'd love it even better if I handcuffed you first. Admit it."

  "No" She swallowed.

  "At night in your lonely bed, you dream of being at the mercy of a man like me. Bound and spread and helpless. Ready to be fucked." Humiliation shafted through the languid desire he'd roused. It was as if he'd eavesdropped on her darkest fantasies, the ones she hated

  to admit even to herself. "I'm not a toy, damn you!" Dana cried, her voice ragged with shame. "Don't treat me like one!"

  Archer froze. She felt the hot wi
nd of his breath gusting hard against her ear, heard him swallow. "No," he said, his voice hoarse. "You're not a toy."

  Then he was gone, releasing her so quickly she would have fallen if he hadn't caught her again. He spun her around, gathering her wrists in one hand. She felt the touch of something cool around one of them, heard a snap, a musical rattle.

  He was handcuffing her again. He was going to take her right here in the parking lot.

  "No!" Dana fought to pull away, but he was too strong. "Not like this. Please, Archer!"

  "Calm down," he said roughly. "I'm not going to do it here."

  Panting, she subsided. He led her to the passenger side of one of the big, government cars parked in the lot and bundled her inside. Dana sat there, dazed, while he leaned in to buckle the seatbelt around her. His hair brushed her face as he snapped the belt together. She remembered what he'd said about smelling her wetness. She shivered in arousal and shame.

  Archer pulled away from her and closed the door with a solid thunk. A moment later the driver's door opened, and he got in. The car started with a well-mannered growl.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Charleston. I have a house there." He threw the car into reverse and began to back up.

  "Charleston. That's a two hour drive." Two hours in the car with him. Alone. And then they'd be at his house.

  Alone.

  She just wished the idea didn't make her feel so hot.

  There was something about Dana that made him lose control. Archer had planned to take it slow, play the dark master of seduction until he had her begging. It was a part he'd acted for countless partners until he knew every leisurely step, every stylized gesture.

  So when he'd pushed Dana against the wall, he'd intended nothing more than the opening act. Then he'd touched her, tasted her skin, scented her growing arousal, seen her blend of trembling desire and shame. He'd taken those full breasts in his hands, and hunger had roared over him in a wave so strong he'd come within a hair's-breadth of ripping her jeans down and taking her. Right there against the wall.

  But the game was not supposed to affect Archer this way. He was supposed to be in control—of her and himself. An actor, playing a role. That was, after all, what he did best: act, whether the part was white supremacist assassin, Nazi S.S. officer, or demon lover. Whatever it was, Archer wrapped himself in the role, but he never lost sight of his goal and never forgot he was acting.

  Yet somehow, Dana Ivory made him forget. This game was about gaining control of a potential vampire agent, yet he was the one who was being seduced. She kicked his hunger so high and so hot that all he wanted was to sweep her up and take her. Take her body, take her blood, take her heart. Take her and own her, until she was his without question, without possibility of escape.

  And Dana responded deliciously, but she also fought that response, refusing to simply go along with the game. Archer wasn't sure he understood why. Usually women were more than happy to let him play the demon lover, never questioning what his real feelings were. He suspected they thought of him as nothing more than a fantasy given delicious life. And nobody cared about the feelings of a fantasy.

  Yet Dana seemed to want something more. He had no idea what, or how to give it to her. Or even if he should.

  Still, she responded to his demon lover. And that would have to be enough—for both of them.

  She should be afraid of him, Dana thought. For God's sake, the man was a vampire. He'd handcuffed and ab-

  ducted her for sex and bondage. He could even kill her and make sure no one ever caught him. Yet she felt no physical fear of him at all.

  Paranoia stirred. Maybe she was under some kind of spell after all.

  But... She stole a look at Archer's Roman coin profile as he drove. There was, despite every wicked thing he'd threatened her with, a basic core of decency under that dominant male mask of his. There wasn't even any real cruelty. He wouldn't hurt her. Not physically.

  Emotionally, she wasn't so sure about. Dana didn't like the way he was getting to her, the way he'd figured out her darkest fantasies and turned them against her.

  "How do you do it?" She asked the question before she realized she was going to. "How do you always know how to make me respond?"

  Archer looked at her. His eyes reflected a glow of red in the light of a passing car, making her heart leap at the eerie shimmer they gave off. Dana expected him to give her another one of those suggestive lines of his, but his tone was serious when he answered. "I've been at this two centuries and more, Dana. I serve my country out of duty, but I seduce to survive."

  "Why?" she demanded, not sounding nearly as cool as she wished. "Why does it matter to you what my fantasies are?"

  Archer turned his head again to watch the road. "A vampire feeds on strong emotion as much as blood. The higher, the hotter, I can get my partner, the stronger the psychic charge she gives me in her climax. I learned a long time ago how to read the needs a woman can't speak, that she can't even allow a lover to guess. When I feed that hidden need, the response is explosive."

  She stirred uneasily against the leather seat. "Then what? You just walk away? You've been fed, and that's it? What about how she feels?"

  "You imagine a trail of broken hearts in my wake?" Archer snorted. "Women don't fall in love with a guilty fantasy. Generally they can't forget me fast enough"

  Dana frowned, studying his profile in the dim, soft light of the dashboard. Was that a flash of vulnerability? "Are you the one with the broken heart, Archer?"

  He laughed, a short, bitter bark. "Demon lovers have no hearts, Dana. We fuck, we feed and we walk, and everybody's happy."

  "Are you?"

  "Ecstatic." A flash of red. "You can't imagine what it's like, seeing a beautiful woman stretched out in chains, helpless and writhing and hot. Knowing that in a moment I'm going to possess her, sink my cock and my fangs into her delicate flesh.. "

  Archer tormented Dana like that for the next half-hour, until she finally blurted out, "So how do you become a vampire?"

  It was such a transparent attempt to change the subject that he had to smile. Still, talking dirty to Dana was just a little too stimulating, so Archer decided to play along. "Are you asking about me in particular, or vampires in general?"

  She licked her lips. "In general, I guess."

  Archer eyed her. She looked flushed and flustered, he noted with satisfaction. Not exactly the cool reporter who'd started grilling him the moment they'd met.

  "You'd need a weakened immune system, then you'd have to ingest a large amount of infected blood." Nothing like talking about infected blood to wilt an erection. "All of which would probably kill you anyway, but if it didn't, the virus would move in and change the DNA in your cells. That in turn would change your muscles, your bones, your nerves. You'd become enormously strong, and your immune system would be able to heal almost any injury."

  Dana frowned. "I thought viruses weakened their hosts, not made them stronger."

  "This is more of a symbiotic relationship," Archer said, repeating the explanation a CIA researcher had once given him. "It has to be. The vampire virus is so weak it only survives by making the few who do catch it practically immortal."

  "Huh. I'm surprised the government's not infecting people in droves."

  Archer winced, remembering one of the CIA's more boneheaded stunts. "They tried. Once. They had this program going in the Sixties, during the Vietnam War. It was so secret even I didn't know about it. They took samples of my blood when I went in for surgery

  to remove a few bullets. Then..."

  "Infected somebody"

  He nodded. "I found out about the project when I had to kill the vampire they made, and I made sure they never tried it again."

  "You killed him? Why?" Archer could almost see her taking notes in her head. "How'd you stop them?"

  "You never quit hunting a story, do you?"

  "Nope. Why'd you kill him?"

  "He ripped out the throats of the resear
ch team" Archer grimaced, remembering the battlefield gore he'd seen in that lab. "One by one. Then he killed the strike force the CIA sent in after him. Twenty-three people died before they finally called me to take care of the problem." He shook his head. "The crazy son of a bitch almost got me, too. God, I was pissed. You can't just pick somebody at random and infect them."

  "Why not?"

  He glanced at her and told her a crucial truth, knowing she wouldn't recognize it until later. "Because very few people can handle the change. You become aware of the thoughts of others, the beat of their hearts, the blood in their veins—blood you're desperately hungry for. If you're not one of the very few who can generate a psychic shield, you go mad. And it takes another vampire to recognize a potential survivor."

  "So they dropped the experiment?" Dana looked uneasy, as if she didn't quite buy it.

  "I told them that if I ever found a candidate, I'd let them know. Don't worry, nobody's got a lab somewhere turning out vampires. Not in this country, anyway."

  "I can't tell you how relieved that makes me feel," Dana said, rolling her eyes. She was silent a moment, mulling over everything he'd told her. "There must not be very many of you"

  "I've met only two, other than the one the CIA spawned. About thirty years ago, there was a Soviet agent named Pavel Andronovich..."

  "The Russians have vampires too?"

  "Not anymore."

  "Oh" Whatever Dana read on his face kept her from asking for the details, thank God.

  "Then," he continued, remembering a fall of silken dark hair and hungry eyes, "there was the Countess Isabeau de Vitry, who gave me the Dark Kiss in 1774." Catching her puzzled expression, he explained, "That's what she always called making a vampire, the Dark Kiss. I don't know if that's a universal phrase with vampires, or just another example of Isabeau's French hyperbole."

  She eyed him, frowning. "Why not just ask her?"

  "The Countess has been dead two centuries." Archer paused, remembering the day of guilt and grief when he'd gotten that last letter from Isabeau's steward. "A French mob took her head during the Terror."