Watch Over Me

by Lucy Monroe

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can we go home?” he asked.

  “What are you saying, Myk?”

  “I’m quitting the TGP.”

  “You’d have to, wouldn’t you?”

  “I love that you understand that.”

  “I understand a lot about you, but some stuff has to be spelled out, Mykola.”

  “Like the fact that I’m so in love with you I’ll even work for Mr. Smith so I can stay close to you?”

  She stared at him, unable to take in what he’d just said. “You love me?”

  “So much it hurts.”

  “No.”

  “What? Why no?”

  “No one has ever loved me deep down and forever.”

  “I do. I will.”

  “Is that a promise?” she asked, tears clogging her throat.

  He got up and came to stand right in front of her, then he dropped to one knee. “It’s the most important promise I’ve ever made.”

  “I drive people crazy.”

  “You drive me nuts in ways that excite and delight, sweetheart. I don’t want you to be anything different than what you are.”

  “You don’t mind the Disney décor?”

  “I love the Disney décor. It shows you still believe in magic.”

  Like he’d told her earlier, she loved that he understood important things about her. “I do. I really do. Especially the magic of love.”

  “So, you’ll marry me?” he asked.

  She swallowed convulsively, desperately wanting to get the one-word answer out, but not able to get her vocal cords to cooperate.

  “You can just nod.”

  Tears of joy spilled over as she did. And then she kept nodding until he kissed her. Somehow they ended up snuggled together on a lounger on the balcony.

  She pressed baby kisses all over his face and throat. “I love you, too, Mykola. I was so sure you were going to leave and shatter my heart.”

  “Never.” He grabbed her chin, gently forcing her gaze to meet his. The emotion there made her heart constrict in wonder. “A woman like you comes into a man’s life once. Only an idiot would let you go.”

  A smile she couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted creased her lips. “And you aren’t stupid.”

  “Not at all.”

  “I don’t know about having children.” She was scared to tell him, but he deserved to know. “There are so many bad people in the world, people that could hurt them.”

  “I understand, baby.”

  “Do you really?” She bit her lip. “I try so hard to see the good in the world, but the bad stuff is always out there ready to scare me.”

  “If we have children, you and I will both need to spend a lot less time at work and a lot more time at home. You’ve got a whole world full of starving children that would benefit from you sticking with your consuming research.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “I really believe it.”

  “Maybe…maybe after I’ve perfected the enzymes and I’m ready to cut back on my research we could think about adopting.”

  “Lots of kids need families.”

  “Right, some that are starving for love as much as the ones starving for food.”

  “You’re going to want to Lojack them, aren’t you?”

  “Probably. Just like I’m going to Lojack you.”

  He laughed and kissed her. “I’ll wear a watch, but no way am I getting my belly button pierced.”

  “What about a nipple?”

  “Oh, shit, you are going to keep me on my toes.”

  “Always.”

  “Always. I love you Lana, in a way I honestly never thought I’d be capable of doing.”

  “I love you, Mykola. You are my one and only.”

  “I’ll love you forever.”

  “Promise?”

  “On my heart.”

  What’s a lady to do when she finds herself IN BED WITH A

  STRANGER? Find out in Mary Wine’s Brava debut, new

  this month…

  “It pleases me to find yer face beneath that veil instead of a courtesan’s, all covered in paint.”

  Brodick reached out, stroking a finger over one of her cheeks. “Aye, I am pleased.”

  She shivered again, this time in some odd response to the way his tone had softened. He was no longer angry with her.

  Anne turned quickly to hide the strange reaction from his keen stare. Her face was hot where he’d touched it, the skin oddly alive with sensation. There was a part of her that liked hearing that he approved of her. A man such as he was far above any that she might hope to have of her own.

  “Face me, Mary.”

  Hearing her half sister’s name was like icy water being tossed onto her feet. She turned slowly, struggling to conceal her emotions before facing him once more. This man would not take being deceived very well. Now that her face veil was gone, she needed to be more attentive to concealing her feelings.

  “I’ve no taste for timid women.”

  The gruff tone of his voice annoyed her once again. “You may always return me home.” She looked at the ground, doing her best to look like a coward. For one brief moment hope flickered in her heart that he might reject her.

  “You should take me to my father. He is returned to court.”

  A hard hand cupped her chin, raising it to lock stares with him. “It’s clear you’ve been at court. That place is ripe with schemes.” His lips lost their hard line as he stepped up closer, holding her jaw in a firm grip. “Do I really look like a man who would cry surrender so soon after greeting ye?” He chuckled, the sound sending a quiver through her belly. His warm scent filled her head with each breath as he tilted his head so that his breath teased her lips.

  “You dinnae know very much about Scotsmen, wife. We’re nae intimidated by a few cold glances. In Scotland, we’re more practiced in the arts of warming up our women.”

  He touched his mouth to hers and she jerked away from the contact. It burned clear through her, all the way to her toes. Her freedom was short-lived. With a twist of his larger body, he snaked an arm around her waist. He moved toward her in the same moment, surrounding her and pinning her against his hard body.

  “Now that won’t do.” He pulled her flush against his frame, tight enough to feel his heart beating. His gaze settled onto her mouth as he slipped a hand up the back of her neck to hold her head. “It won’t do at all. Kissing my new wife is something I’m nae in the mood to miss.”

  He touched his mouth to hers again, this time slowly. She twisted in his embrace, too many impulses shooting along her body to understand. The few kisses in her past had been stolen ones and brief. Brodick lingered over her mouth, gently tasting her lips before pressing her jaw to open for a deeper touch. His embrace imprisoned her but not painfully. He seemed to understand his strength perfectly, keeping her against him with exactly enough force, but stopping short of causing her pain.

  She shivered as the tip of his tongue glided across her lower lip. Sensation rippled down her spine as she gasped in shock. Never once had she thought that a touch might be so intense. Her hands were flattened against his chest and her fingertips were alive with new desires. Touching him felt good. She opened her fingers wider, letting them smooth over the hard ridges of muscles that his open doublet had allowed her to see. Pleasure moved through her in a slow cloud that left a haze over her mind. Forming thoughts became slow and cumbersome as he teased her upper lip, tasting her.

  “Much better.”

  The temperature’s rising in Karen Kelley’s HOW TO

  SEDUCE A TEXAN, out this month from Brava…

  She hit another pothole.

  Dammit! They came out of nowhere. As soon as she got home, she’d need to take her car in for realignment. And she’d send Marge the bill.

  She topped a rise and slammed on the brakes. The car fishtailed, spewing a thick cloud of dust behind her. Her heart felt as if it had taken residence in her throat. S
he skidded to a stop, barely missing the cow that languidly stood in the middle of the road looking unconcerned that it had almost been splattered across her windshield.

  Nikki’s heart pounded inside her chest and her hands shook. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, the black-and-white cow looked at her with total unconcern. This was so not how she wanted to start her vacation slash investigative reporting.

  “I almost wrecked because of you.” She glared at the cow. Her cold-eyed, steely glare that she’d perfected over the years. If it had been a person rather than a dumb animal, it would’ve been frozen to the spot.

  The cow opened its mouth and bellowed a low, meandering, I-was-here-first moo.

  She didn’t think the cow cared one little bit that it had almost become hamburger. Damned country. She’d take city life and dirty politicians any day.

  “Move!” She clapped her hands.

  The cow didn’t get in any hurry as it lumbered to the side of the narrow road and lowered its head. The four-legged beast chomped down on a bunch of grass, then slowly began to chew.

  She shifted into park, then waved her arms. “Shoo!”

  Nothing.

  She honked the horn.

  Nothing.

  The hot sun beat down on her. A bead of sweat slid uncomfortably between her breasts. She judged the narrow road, wondering if she could maneuver around the cow without going into the ditch.

  Before she decided to attempt it, another sound drew her attention. She glanced down the dirt road, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun as a cloud of dust came toward her. The cloud of dust became a man on a horse.

  Correction. A cowboy on a horse.

  Hi-ho, Silver, the Lone Ranger, she thought sarcastically.

  But the closer he got, the more her sarcasm faded. The Lone Ranger had nothing on this cowboy. Broad shoulders, black hat pulled low on his forehead…

  Black hat. Bad guys wore black hats. Right? Things were looking up.

  At least until he brought the horse to a grinding halt and dust swirled around her—again. She coughed and waved her hands in front of her face.

  “Bessie, how the hell do you keep getting out?” he asked.

  His slow Southern drawl drizzled over her like warmed honey, and she knew from experience warmed honey drizzling over her naked body could be very good. Sticky, but oh so sexy.

  Did he look as good as he sounded?

  She shaded her eyes again at the same time he pushed his hat higher on his forehead with one finger. Cal Braxton’s tanned face stared down at her. His cool, deep-green eyes only made her body grow warmer with each passing second.

  So this was the infamous playboy star football player. The man who had a pretty woman on his arm almost every night of the week—at least until Cynthia Cole had come into his life.

  “I almost hit your cow,” she told him as she slipped off one of her high heels and rubbed the insole with her other foot. It didn’t stop the tingle of pleasure that was running up and down her legs. He could park his boots by her bed any day.

  “Sorry about that. Bessie thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.”

  He pulled a rolled-up rope off the saddle horn and swatted the end of it against Bessie’s rump. The cow gave him a disgruntled look before ambling down the road.

  His gaze returned to her…roaming over her…seducing her. “Are you lost?”

  “On vacation.”

  He easily controlled the prancing horse beneath him. “Staying nearby?”

  “At the Crystal Creek Dude Ranch.”

  His grin was slow. So, he did have all his teeth, and they were pearly white. She ran her tongue over her dry lips.

  “My brother owns it,” he said. “I’m helping him out. It looks like we might be seeing a lot of each other. Name’s Cal—Cal Braxton.”

  His thumb idly stroked the rope. For a moment, she was mesmerized as she watched the hypnotic movement.

  “You know, you shouldn’t drive with the top down in this heat,” he said.

  She almost laughed. It wasn’t the heat from the sun that had momentarily stolen her wits. Cal was good. Ah, yes, he knew all the moves that made a woman yearn for him to caress her naked skin. And he made those moves very well.

  No hero comes close to MIDNIGHT’S MASTER, the latest

  from Cynthia Eden, out next month from Brava…

  “Throw her out, Niol. You want the vamps to keep comin’, you throw that bitch out.”

  The tapping stopped, and, because the vampire had raised his shrill-ass voice again, the nearby paranormals—because, generally, the folks who came in his bar were far, far from normal—stilled.

  Niol shook his head slowly. “I think you’re forgetting a few things, vamp.” He gathered the black swell of power that pulsed just beneath his skin. Felt the surge of dark magic and—

  The vamp flew across the bar, slamming into the stage with a scream. The lead guitarist swore, then jumped back, cradling his guitar with both hands like the precious baby he thought it was.

  The sudden silence was deafening.

  Niol motioned toward the bar. “Get me another drink, Marc.” He glanced at the slowly rising vampire. “Did I tell you to get up?” It barely took any effort to slam the bastard into the stage wall this time. Just a stray thought, really.

  Ah, but power was a wonderful thing.

  Sometimes, it was damn good to be a demon. And even better to be a level ten, and the baddest asshole in the room.

  He stalked forward. Enjoyed for a moment the way the crowd jumped away from him.

  The vampire began to shake. Perfect.

  Niol stopped a foot before the fallen Andre. “First,” he growled, “don’t ever, ever fucking tell me what to do in my bar again.”

  A fast nod.

  “Second…” His hands clenched into fists as he fought to rein in the magic blasting through him. The power…oh, but it was tempting. And so easy to use.

  Too easy.

  One more thought, just one, focused and hard, and he could have the vamp dead at his feet.

  “Use too much, you’ll lose yourself.” An old warning. One that had come too late for him. He’d been twenty-five before he met another demon who even came close to him in power and that guy’s warning—well it had been long overdue.

  Niol knew he’d been one of the Lost for years.

  The first time he’d killed, he’d been Lost.

  “Second,” he repeated, his voice cold, clear, and cutting like a knife in the quiet. “If you think I give a damn about the vampires coming to my place…” His mouth hitched into a half-grin, but Niol knew no amusement would show in the darkness of his eyes. “Then you’re dead wrong, vampire.”

  “S-sorry, Niol, I—”

  He laughed. Then turned his back on the cringing vampire. “Thomas.” The guard he always kept close. “Throw that vamp’s ass out.”

  When Thomas stepped forward, the squeal of a guitar ripped through the bar. And the dancing and the drinking and the mating games of the Other began with a fierce rumble of sound.

  His eyes searched for his prey and he found Holly watching him. All eyes and red hair and lips that begged for his mouth. He strode toward her, conscious of covert eyes still on them. He could show no weakness. Never could.

  I’m not weak.

  He was the strongest demon in Atlanta. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to give the paranormals any cause to start doubting his power.

  His kind turned on the weak.

  When he stopped before her, the scent of lavender flooded his nostrils.

  She looked up at him. The human was small, to him anyway, barely reaching his shoulders so that he towered over her.

  She was the weak one. All of her kind were.

  Humans. So easy to wound. To kill.

  He lifted his hand. Stroked her cheek. Damn, but she was soft. Leaning close, Niol told her, “Sweetheart, I warned you before about coming to my Paradise.”
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  There was no doubt others overheard his words. With so many shifters skulking around the joint, a whisper would have been overheard. Shifters and their annoyingly superior senses.

  “Wh-what do you mean?” The question came, husky and soft. Ah, but he liked her voice. And he could all too easily imagine that voice, whispering to him as they lay amid a tangle of sheets.

  Or maybe screaming in his ear as she came.

  He cupped her chin in his hand. A nice chin. Softly rounded. And those lips…the bottom was fuller than the top. Just a bit. So red. Her mouth was slightly parted, open.

  Waiting.

  She stepped back, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Niol—”

  He stared down at her. “Yes, you do.” He caught her arms, wrapping his fingers around her and jerking Holly against him. “I told you, the last time you came into my bar…”

  Her eyes widened. “Niol…”

  Oh, yeah, he liked the way she said his name. She breathed it, tasted it.

  His lips lowered toward hers. “If you want to walk in Paradise, baby, then you’re gonna have to play with the devil.”

  “No, I—”

  He kissed her. Hard. Deep. Niol drove his tongue right past those plump lips and took her mouth the way the beast inside him demanded.

  BRAVA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2009 Lucy Monroe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  ISBN: 0-7582-4363-4