Her life had been nothing but study and work, and although her roommates and colleagues tried to get her to experience life, she would refuse to stray from her plans for the future. She knew that life was short, yet she chose to sequester herself away, making excuses as easily as breathing. But being near Kai had woken something inside her that she couldn’t ignore any longer. The one man she was attracted to, the one who could pull her attention away from her life’s work, would play another role in her soon-to-be short life.
“I understand you couldn’t lift the contract. It’s okay. I don’t want you to feel guilty. If I would’ve paid more attention to what was going on around me, that shifter might still be alive…” She trailed off at the end.
She didn’t see him move, but he appeared in front of her a split second before he wrapped his hands around her upper arms and jerked her to her feet. One of his hands cupped her cheek; the other one pressed against her lower back, which brought her closer to his body. As she tried to step back, she found herself locked against his harder body; her eyes stared into his.
His face contorted as he snarled a curse. “The contract has been canceled. Stop being so fucking casual about your life. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The words pierced her with relief, but with his scent surrounding her and his hard muscles pressed against her, she couldn’t concentrate on anything other than her breathing and masking her immediate reaction to his closeness.
Again, she tried to step back, but he wouldn’t allow her to pull away from him. Soon, his words connected with some part of her mind that wasn’t filled with thoughts of his lips on hers or his hands on her naked body, and her mouth dropped open.
“What?”
“There is no contract. The bad news is that we’re stuck in the house. I’m certain that Standard already has a contract on you, so we’re sequestered together. There will be a meeting in three days, but until then, some of my fellow assassins are doing recon on Standard.”
A shiver of pleasure at his words rushed through her body, and she closed her eyes as his arms tightened against her back, bringing her flush against him. This attraction was quickly growing out of control for her, and she took several deep breaths to calm down. When she opened her eyes, the silver of his eyes were glowing, and she was entranced by the breathtaking sight. Her heart leapt into her throat, and without understanding her actions, she placed her hands on his chest and moved closer to him. She wanted to beg him to touch her, to make her feel more than this wanting that hadn’t waned since he’d spoken to her, when she remembered his enhanced senses.
He could hear her heart beat faster and smell her arousal, and it was enough to bring reality snapping back into focus.
“I…don’t understand what’s happening with me, but I would appreciate you not using my attraction against me. I can’t help it; you’re a very sexy man.”
His mouth dropped close to hers and a small smile played on his lips. “I’m a vampire, darlin’, not a man.”
His endearment caught her off guard and she shivered. Using her curiosity as a distraction, she opened her mouth to ask him about his Southern slang and where he picked it up, but he chose that moment to brush a kiss against her lips, before he pulled back to examine her reaction. That one touch of his skin against hers drew a moan from deep in her throat, and her hands clutched his unrelenting shoulders, trying to guide him closer.
His intense gaze held her softer one a split second before he slid one hand to the small of her back, the other around to her shoulders, and tugged her closer.
Her choppy breaths were the loudest sound in the vast living room. After a few seconds, she thought that he might have been teasing her for admitting her weakness for him, but he chose that moment to lower his mouth to hers and swallowed her moan at the contact.
He teased her lips, lightly brushing his against the corner of her mouth, along her sensitive bottom lip, and tickled her top lip, before he tilted his head. Silently, she begged him to deepen the kiss. Instead, his tongue darted out and tasted her bottom lip.
He froze at his actions, and in the next moment, he untangled himself and stepped back.
Her heart jumped in her chest when he took another; his eyes remained downcast, leaving her feeling cold and rejected. It was his way of telling her not to expect anything between them, and in a way, she understood. But it still hurt.
When he was a safe distance from her, she took a deep breath and after several minutes, she was able to get her emotions under control. When he spoke, she was proud of herself that she could look him in the eye.
“I need you to make a list of food and other supplies you might need during your stay. I’ll go find you something to write with, and make a call.”
“Do you happen to have a computer not connected to the Internet? I’m afraid that if I turn mine on, they can trace me here,” she said.
He indicated the laptop on the coffee table, and she nodded. She broke eye contact and reluctantly left the warmth of the fireplace to start working on the solution. She sat cross-legged on the floor and booted it up. Opening the file that contained the formula for the weapon, she soon became lost in trying to figure out a way to combat the deadly drug.
Without realizing that she had been doing it, she rubbed the spot on her chest right above her heart, as if something physically ailed her. She did her best to ignore the actions, and soon, her mind focused on the task at hand.
It wasn’t until she detected a presence next to her on the floor that she lost her concentration, and glanced to her right. Her eyes widened when she spotted a teenage boy, sitting close, and reading the screen as she worked.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hey. What are you doing?” He indicated the calculations on the screen.
“Working on a vaccine.”
“Is that what you do, for a living, I mean?” he asked.
“I’m an immunologist. This was a man-made drug that hurts people, and I’m trying to find a vaccine to combat it.”
He quietly observed her for several minutes, not shy about meeting her eyes or scanning the emotions on her face. When his brows drew down and she saw the corner of his lips pinch in concentration, she knew that this kid was great at reading people. She wouldn’t be surprised if people spilled their secrets to him, just from the look alone.
“You lost someone,” he stated.
Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away before they could spill over.
“When I was growing up, my older sister, Molly, and I were close. Our parents had children because it was part of marriage and the image they wanted to uphold. But they never wanted us around, so they shipped us to boarding school or summer camp, anything to have us not underfoot. When I was seventeen, Molly started losing weight and had a rainbow of bruises around her body that wouldn’t go away. She was tired all the time and I tried to point out her symptoms to my parents, but they ignored it, until she collapsed on the way home from school. By the time the doctor examined her, she was diagnosed with acute leukemia, which spread quickly. She was dead within three months. I don’t want anyone else to lose someone that they love, so that’s why I do it.”
It surprised her when he draped a long arm over her shoulder and squeezed once. A low snarl reached her, but the sound cut off before she could understand what it meant. Instead, she turned her focus on the boy sitting close to her.
“I’m—”
“Liv, yeah, I know. Kai told me. I’m Seth. I live next door.”
A lump stuck in her throat. “The only person who called me Liv was Molly.”
To hide her discomfort from the perceptive teenager, she spotted the pad and pen near the computer, as she remembered what it was there for. She quickly wrote down simple ingredients, such as pasta, salads, eggs, and other foods that would be quick to make, and added loose leaf notebook paper, iron supplements, pens, and pencils to the list.
Her eyes searched for her messenger bag where she kept her wallet. I
nstead, her eyes found Kai lounging against the kitchen counter watching her interaction with Seth. He dropped his smile when she glanced at him, but his eyes tracked her every movement.
Ignoring her racing heart, she stood and retrieved her wallet from deep inside her bag. There was a benefit to working for one of the foremost biotech companies in the country. She was paid extremely well and had few opportunities to spend it. She pulled out several hundred dollars in cash, and handed the list and money to Seth. Kai was about to protest, but she spoke to Seth before he could object.
“You don’t mind doing this for me?” she asked.
“No. I’m off for the next few days, and I have some time to kill.” Seth shrugged.
“Here is the list. If you can’t find anything, don’t worry about it. Except the pills—I’ll need those. And keep the change,” she added.
“I can’t,” he spluttered.
“Yes, you can. Thanks, Seth. I appreciate your help.”
He stood frozen for a long moment with the cash and list in his hand, probably thinking about other objections to taking her money, but she reached for his shoulder and turned him toward the door, pulling him from his daze. She gave him a little push when he didn’t move.
He chuckled at her when he didn’t move an inch. He turned back and opened his mouth, before he shut it.
“Do you think you can, well, show me your work sometime?” Seth asked.
She smiled at him and nodded. “Anytime.”
Seth gave her a small smile and headed toward the door. She worried about Kai’s reaction to Seth, until the kid smacked Kai on the shoulder when the vampire growled playfully at him. The kid was laughing by the time he reached the door.
She called after him. “I already ate tonight, so if you could go in the morning that would be great.”
“Hey, kid, you remember your alarm code?” Kai asked.
Seth nodded and gave a small wave to both of them before he was out the door. A beep that she hadn’t heard when Seth entered echoed throughout the room, and she glanced around to find where it had come from.
“Everyone who has access to the house has their own personal alarm code. The entire house is secured with steel doors and metal shutters, designed to keep out light and anyone trying to enter without permission. You are sequestered in the house until we figure out who we are dealing with and find out exactly how much trouble you’re in.” He glared at her.
“Got it,” she murmured.
He rubbed his hand over his face and glanced at her for a long moment. “That was the most I’ve heard Seth talk since I’ve known him.”
A laugh escaped her when she heard Kai’s incredulity. “He’s a good kid. Does he have any brothers or sisters?”
“No, it’s just him and his parents. They own a dry cleaning business, and it does pretty well, but they don’t have a lot of time to spend with him. And as you can tell, Seth is curious about everything. I give him odd jobs to do, but when he’s not in school, he’s at work. He wants to major in chemical engineering, but he’s worried about having enough money to go. I haven’t told him yet, but I’ve got it covered.”
“He deserves it,” she said.
A look of confusion spread across his face. “You just met him.”
She shrugged. “Seth is very empathetic and observant, and even though it made him uncomfortable, he hugged me in hopes it would make me feel better. He’s going to be a great man. Does he know…about you?”
Kai laughed. The big, booming sound resonated throughout the room, drawing a surprise gasp from her throat.
“Yeah, he guessed when he was twelve. When I confirmed it, he told me it was cool, and went on his way. He asks me questions, and I answer them as truthfully as possible. He doesn’t know about my job, but I think that he has suspicions, and if he ever asks me about it, I won’t lie to him.”
After the moment of laughter, the silence stretched between them, and soon became uncomfortable. It became clear in that moment that she was thrust into his life, and she silently promised herself that she would keep out of his way as much as possible. He was kind enough to open his home to her and keep her safe, so she would do the best she could to finish before the rest of his team arrived.
As she walked back to the laptop, his movements blurred as he dashed across the living room in a second, reaching for her arm, lightly touching her elbow and stopping her the moment she felt his touch.
“There’s one other thing we need to talk about…”
Her eyes scanned his face, and for the first time since he brought her to his house, he was reluctant to speak to her. She didn’t know whether it was because of the kiss they shared, or whether he changed his mind about her life. Whatever it was, she decided to wait silently to hear what he had to say.
“I’ll need blood, and since we’re stuck together, I will have to drink from you directly. Will that be a problem?”
“Will it hurt?” she asked.
The question, the one she was worried about most, burst free without thought.
Once he’d told her that he was a vampire, she wondered about his need for blood. With them stuck in his massive home together, of course he would need to drink from her. But her thoughts came back, time and again, of his teeth piercing her external jugular vein on her neck, or her ulnar vein on the wrist, the only real viable arteries that would account for the blood flow he would need to properly feed. Before she could dwell on the actual sensation of sharpened fangs on her skin, he pulled her out of her thoughts.
“No! I would never hurt you. My saliva has a numbing agent, so I would lick the area before I drank from you. My fangs have healing properties, so you won’t feel any pain during or have scarring after the area heals.”
Her body sagged with relief. Trypanophobia was the bane of her existence; she drew samples from volunteers with practiced ease, but if anyone required a sample from her, she looked away and sang at the top of her lungs to distract herself from the brief pinch of pain. It was ridiculous, but she hadn’t been able to move past it, even at the age of twenty-eight, and there was no way she would ever let Kai know of her fear.
“Do you drink three times a day, like we eat?” she asked.
“Twice, usually. For instance, I’ve already fed today, so we’ll wait until tomorrow night.” He paused for a moment. “And if I’m ever hurt, then I need more blood to recover from any wounds that I might receive.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “How often do you get hurt?”
“I kill people for a living, darlin’. It’s a professional hazard. No one wants to die, and the criminals we go after are heavily armed and are usually protected by several bodyguards who are trained to kill on sight. There’s no way around them, so you have to go through them.” He shrugged.
Again with the endearments.
She chose to ignore them as she thought about their next few days together; she was grateful that his boss had restricted his movements outside of the house. The thought of him hurt, in any way, caused her stomach to lurch uneasily, and her heart to try to beat out of her chest. His casualness had her on edge, and she needed to get her mind on something more productive.
“Is there anything you prefer I eat or drink?” she asked.
“If you could refrain from alcohol, I would appreciate it, but food doesn’t usually affect the taste of your blood.”
She nodded. “One more question. Have you ever lost control while drinking, and killed someone?”
A sharp nod caught her by surprise. To her, he was the definition of control, but everyone slipped, and she wasn’t in the place to judge him or the way he lived his life. Willing her face to remain passive, she caught his gaze and waited to see whether he would explain.
“When I was first turned, I was unable to control my thirst, and drank until the woman’s heart gave out. It was the first and only time I’ve killed someone I wasn’t assigned to kill,” he said with a serious expression, “and trust me, I will be in control at all times w
hen I feed from you.”
Once again, she found that she trusted him at his word, and nodded her understanding.
He nodded back, and she placed it in the back of her mind as she got back to work. Or at least she tried. Her mind wandered as she thought about how his tongue and his lips would feel on her already heated skin. Despite his earlier rejections, some part of her was drawn to him, and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t shut down those inappropriate thoughts that heated her veins and sent shafts of pleasure through her.
Shaking off her desire, she thought about the problem in a way she understood, scientifically. He was a physically attractive male, over six feet tall, fit, and looked to be around her age. He was wealthy, as witnessed by his beautiful home, and he had shown intelligence. All qualities that women look for when searching for a potential mate. So, she rationalized, it was natural to be attracted to him because her biological makeup dictated that she find a viable mate and bear children, and he fit the bill to a T. Unfortunately, while it put order to her inconvenient thoughts, she had no idea how to rid herself of the attraction other than with distance and time.
And that might prove to be impossible while she lived with him.
Chapter Five
Kai
The screams echoed in his head as he bolted down one darkened corridor after another, his route imperceptible apart from the sounds he followed.
Kai (A Dark Assassins Novel Book One) Page 4
