Love Ever After: Eleven All-New Romances!

by Nina Lane

  Or with something else.

  “You need to sleep, Lauren. I had no choice. I have to protect you from Batiste Carlyle’s mind control.”

  I try to run to the door, but my legs wobble like rubber. Next thing I know I am on the floor, with no idea how I got there. The room is lurching, revolving slowly before my eyes. I can’t seem to make my limbs move.

  My father scoops me up and carries me to bed. The last words I hear are ones he gives the scientist with dreadlocks as both men head out of my bedroom door. “That should knock her out until late tomorrow afternoon. We’ll deal with Carlyle before then.”

  Chapter 6

  Am I dreaming or is he projecting himself in my room...and stripping?

  Silhouetted by silver moonlight, Batiste stands at the end of my bed and he is shoving his leather pants down from his hips.

  Beautiful narrow hips, with amazing hip bones that jut out in defined ridges, framing his flat, sexy abdomen. I’ve always been a sucker for the way a trim man’s haunches suck in and Batiste has the perfect indent. His thighs are strong, big and his legs are long and muscled.

  And he’s taking off his clothes.

  Wait a minute—what? “What are you doing?” I breathe. I’m sitting up in bed, staring at him in shock. He may be gorgeous...but he’s a vampire.

  “Do you want me?” he asks.

  I was a virgin before I met Leo, and he swept me off my feet. Leo and I would spend our whole weekend together in bed and it was a whirlwind of having sex with him, loving sex but never having an orgasm with him. Oh yeah, and falling in love so I could get my heart broken.

  My body aches for Batiste. My pussy, my lips, my fingers. All of me.

  But a part of my soul is terrified. If I had more experience I might be able to handle this painful desire. I’d fallen in love a lot of times, but I’d only made love with one man—and now, am I ready for casual sex with a vampire?

  When I know it’s not really going to be casual.

  Not for me.

  Not for me either, Lauren.

  “How did you do that?”

  I never hear the answer, because the next moment my eyes open to darkness. I’m fully conscious. I was dreaming after all.

  Is it day or night? I’m underground so there is no way I can tell. I pull my cell phone out of my purse, but it won’t turn on. That I don’t understand. I can see there would be no signal, but why don’t I have any power? Then I realize why—the back of the phone was forced open and pushed back in place. My phone battery is gone.

  This time my bedroom door is locked. There’s a keypad beside my door, painted white and smaller than the one I used for the cell block door. I try my birth date, but it flashes red. My parents’ wedding anniversary? That doesn’t work. I type in the date Christiane disappeared, getting worried. Will the keypad shut down if I strike out three times? After all, there is the date when my father left. Maybe he used that. Or maybe it’s a random number with no significance?

  But I don’t have to worry. Green flashes. The door opens.

  I go out into the hallway warily. That felt too easy and I wonder if my father is letting me escape, watching me again.

  But why?

  What does he want from me? Of anyone, he must know what I am—if I had some special power to give Batiste his soul, my father must know about it.

  Unless he doesn’t know how this power works and that’s why he wants to study me.

  God, it’s like I’ve walked into a comic book.

  I reach the elevator. I’m still woozy and if I move too fast, I feel like I want to be sick. I slap the down button and to my surprise the door opens again. In moments, I’m back at the door to the cell block. I punch in the numbers I used yesterday and it doesn’t work. I try the same date I used in my room and the door clicks open.

  I run to Batiste’s cell in my bare feet. This time, I abandoned my stupid shoes, leaving them in the bedroom.

  In the center of the cold cell, Batiste stands up. He’s still chained around the neck and at the ankles and wrists. His eyes are shadowed, dark wells of pain and shock. “Lauren, what in hell are you doing? This is too dangerous—”

  “I want to help you get out of here. I can’t bear to see you as a captive. I’m not going to let this happen to you. And I’m not going to stay in here either, held as a prisoner by my own father.” I follow the bars with my eyes, searching for a lock, for a way in. I can’t see anything. Smooth bars run from floor to ceiling without any sign there’s a door through them.

  “I know how to get out,” he says. “I need you to help me do it. Go to the computer terminal at the end of the row of cells.”

  I run to the curved desk that stands at the end of the row—the metal floor is cold and hard under my bare feet. I pause, faced with one keyboard and a half dozen monitors.

  “I infiltrated the mind of the soldier who operates the cell door. I know how this works,” Batiste says, in his deep voice with the trace of an accent. A French accent? I’m not sure, but it must be, since he was born in Normandy. Almost a thousand years ago.

  The fact that he was born in medieval Europe makes it strange as he smoothly talks me through the process—the keys to press on the keyboard, the codes to use. Then the bars of his cell make a soft grinding sound and slide aside.

  “Does this control the cuffs on your wrists and ankles—?” I begin.

  But he growls like an enraged bear and he pulls his arms together hard. The chains creak and shake under the force he’s applying. I realize he doesn’t need my help. The chains snap with an explosive pop and the ends fly through the air.

  “Batiste—!”

  The ends of the chains strike his shoulders like the lash of a whip. They cut his skin and blood wells. But Batiste doesn’t seem to notice. His biceps tighten into huge, hard bulges. Like slabs of iron, his forearms tense. He rips the cuff off the neck with his bare hands. And tears off the others.

  I knew he must be strong—he had carried me as if I was weightless—but watching him casually rip apart thick metal stuns me.

  An alarm sounds, so suddenly that I scream in shock and leap off the floor.

  Before I can react, Batiste is at my side, barefoot and shirtless. His muscles ripple, his forearm tightens as he flexes his body, as if shaking off the memory of being chained up. Then he grasps my wrist, with surprising gentleness. “We’ve got to get out. I remember the way in—they thought I was drugged.” He makes a scoffing sound.

  He leads me across the floor toward a door in the corner of the cell block. I run with Batiste, but each step almost kills my feet. I’m already feeling winded with panic and about twenty yards still separates us from the door. I let go of his hand and he sprints to the door, covering the distance in the time it takes me to pant twice. He kicks the door open, then turns back for me.

  “Halt.”

  Damn it, of course some soldiers showed up. In that heartbeat of time after the shout, I realize that it makes no sense that Batiste was not guarded. Was all this set up? Did my father guess I would help Batiste? What does my father want?

  Batiste lifts his hands slowly. I turn around.

  Two soldiers stand there, but their guns are trained on me.

  “Don’t move, vampire,” the tallest soldier barks at Batiste. “One more step and we shoot.”

  He doesn’t say it, but I realize he means to shoot me. He’s using me as leverage. But would my father have ordered that, or is the soldier bluffing?

  “Go,” I scream at him. “I don’t think they’ll shoot me.”

  They make a show of ensuring the guns are aimed at me, their fingers close to the triggers. Doubt hits me. Would my father shoot me rather than let me help Batiste?

  Idiot. I guess I thought he cared about me. But he’s been out of my life for years and maybe he really didn’t do that just to protect me. Maybe he did it because he doesn’t give a damn about me.

  “Stand down,” Batiste rumbles as he walks back toward the soldiers, hands
raised.“I’m not going to take that chance. I’ll surrender.”

  Before I can scream at him to not do it, he vanishes. A breeze whooshes past me. I watch the soldiers panic and yell at each other, then scream and crumple to the ground.

  Batiste stops moving and he materializes from a blur into a solid, half-naked man.

  “What did you do?”

  “You know I can move at preternatural speed.” As he speaks, his skin begins to ripple and bulge. His muscles pop as if they’re charged with electricity. He grinds his teeth. Fangs suddenly lengthen from his mouth, lapping over his full lower lip. Wings erupt from his back—the long, black bat wings I saw before. Sleek, thin, beautiful, they spread out around him.

  He wraps his arms around me, his wings beat with powerful strokes, and he lifts me off the ground. Instead of using the door, he takes me thirty feet in the air and we land on a high metal balcony that encircles the cell area. Batiste kicks that door in and we run through.

  He holds my hand, running so fast through corridors that I’m almost pulled off my feet. But he senses it and slows down for me.

  “I’m too slow,” I shout at him. “You should go without me.”

  “I would never do that.”

  He kicks in a door marked “Stairwell 5”. Inside, I look at the flights of stairs that spiral above me. I can’t run up all those—

  Batiste grabs me, spreads his wings again, and beats them hard. We soar up past the stairs. Up and up, so fast that the stairs flash past in a way that makes me dizzy. I shut my eyes tight. His arms are firm and strong around me.

  In the arms of this man, who is a vampire and supposed to be dangerous, I’ve never felt safer.

  He slows and we set down on the last metal landing with a loud clang. Batiste kicks open the door—it literally flies off its hinges and skids over the warehouse floor. Hand in hand, we run out into the warehouse space that’s on street level. We’re so close to getting out—

  My father is standing between us and the big garage doors. He’s not alone—a dozen armed soldiers stand beside him. Some carry the Taser-like weapon they used earlier to capture Batiste.

  Batiste snarls, face contorting like an enraged animal. “If you kill her, if you harm her, I will hunt you down and destroy you.”

  His arms tighten around me once more and he flies up toward the ceiling. The beat of his wings, the rush of air is almost deafening.

  I hear my father shout, “Don’t shoot. Shit, don’t shoot. We can’t lose her. Don’t use the Taser, damn it. Not even that—it would kill her.”

  So he didn’t want me killed and the other soldier was bluffing. But it doesn’t make me feel any softer toward my father. There is no way to get out and even if Batiste isn’t shot, he will be a captive again and he will be tortured—

  Trust me, Lauren.

  I hear Batiste’s voice like a deep, intense whisper in my head. I hear it in my soul, I swear.

  He spins in midair and flies at the corrugated metal ceiling of the warehouse, boots first. He kicks hard and explodes through it, wrapping his wings around me at the last moment to protect me. Metal tears with a squeals and cracks. Chunks of tar explode out and fly around us. Shards of metal deck and the tar of the roof rain down on us, bouncing off Batiste. But inside the cocoon made by his shimmering, leathery wings I’m safe. We land on the roof for only a moment, then take off again.

  “Where are you going?” Where in hell should I go? Running made sense, but now I realize I have no idea where I can run.

  My apartment, he says in my thoughts. You’ll be safe there. But now, open your eyes. Enjoy the view.

  We’re flying through the city, heading toward Central Park. Dawn is just kissing the sky and making it blush pink. Batiste keeps to the shadows cast by the skyscrapers.

  “Oh God,” I mutter. I have to shut my eyes. I’m not courageous enough to fly twenty stories off the ground.

  Don’t be afraid. I won’t let you go.

  “Sorry. I tend to be afraid when I’m doing things that are impossible,” I answer, shouting over the roar of rushing air.

  In my head—and my heart—I hear his laughter. Then, more seriously, he says, “This is something special I can give you, Lauren. An adventure. Something beautiful, after you gave me the chance to escape being a soulless demon.”

  He sounds so sincere that I try opening my eyes. Below me, morning traffic moves on the streets. Early risers stride down the sidewalks. It’s stunning to think I’m soaring over the world. I feel Batiste fight the air currents that rise and fall due to the tall buildings and in some moments my heart jumps into my throat.

  “It’s amazing.” I laugh, savoring it.

  He flies gently downward, makes his way into the alley between two tall buildings. He lowers us to the ground. “This is my place,” he says. “It’s better to walk to the front door.”

  “I bet it is. So we’ll look normal.” Then I laugh, a little hysterically. I’m barefoot, wearing the skirt and top I wore to the gallery last night. My purse is slung over my shoulder and across my body. Batiste is naked from the waist up. His wings have retreated. They completely disappear, and I have no idea how they do it. His fangs are gone too. But we sure don’t look like a normal couple up early in Manhattan.

  “We look like we just did the flight of shame.”

  His black eyes sparkle at me. “My doorman will be intrigued.”

  “Oh God. How are we going to explain this?” I realize I’m just accepting the idea of going to his apartment. But if he wanted to kill me, feed on me, wouldn’t he have done it already?

  Unless he wants to get comfortable first.

  But I believe in him. That’s the crazy thing.

  I start to head out to the sidewalk, but he catches my arm and draws me back. Until I’m eye-to-chest with him. All the wounds that marred his gorgeous chest are gone.

  Batiste touches my face. “You dared those soldiers to shoot you, Lauren. You risked everything for me.”

  “Well...you risked everything for me. Several times.”

  His thumb brushes over my lips and it’s like I just touched a sparkler to them—a shower of sparks cascades through me. Sliding his hand in my hair, he draws me toward his mouth. My lips soften, ready to touch his. Then he stops abruptly and pushes me back. “Fuck,” he mutters.

  It’s almost physically painful to not kiss him. I want it. I ache for him—my heart feels that sudden shot of need and poignant yearning that I felt for Leo.

  But he shoved me away. He didn’t want to kiss me, and that’s like a shot of ice to my heart.

  Then I see something in my peripheral vision—a line of moving gold. A shaft of sunlight slices through the space between the buildings. It slants toward us like a blade slicing down.

  Batiste!

  * * *

  He grabs my wrist and pulls me out of the alley. The stream of light just misses him. Shadows still cross the sidewalk—the sun isn’t high enough to crest the roofs—and Batiste darts from one block of darkness to the next. Through them, we make our way to his elegant glass and brass front door. I watch Batiste gaze steadily into the face of the uniformed doorman. “Good morning, Mr. Carlyle,” the man says cheerfully. “Enjoy your walk?”

  “I did, Flynn,” Batiste answers. He puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me through the glass doors.

  “Have a good day, Mr. Carlyle. Miss.”

  Once we’re out of earshot of the doorman, I whisper, “How did he not notice that you’re shirtless and I have no shoes? Why did he think you went for a walk at daybreak?”

  “I controlled his mind,” Batiste says. He gives a wry grin that makes a shiver go through me. He looks so gorgeous when he smiles. He goes to an elevator at the end of the bank in the art deco marble foyer. He places his hand on a small screen. “I had the penthouse elevator changed to scan my fingerprints.”

  Gold doors with an inlaid geometric design of silver and black glide open. Silently, we are whisked in the elegant el
evator to the penthouse, where the doors roll back to reveal a huge space surrounded by windows.

  Not what I’d expected for a vampire’s home.

  Batiste punches buttons on a keypad and blinds drop down on the windows, blocking out the rising sun.

  “Sorry to spoil the view,” he says, “but the sunlight would fry me.” He steps in, walking across a dark red hardwood floor into a living space filled with beautiful leather and stainless steel furniture. A bar made of inlaid wood spans one corner and he steps behind it and opens a stainless steel fridge. He takes out a bottle of white wine, filling two glasses.

  My breath utterly taken away, I gaze around the huge apartment.

  Batiste looks up. Smiles. “Over ten centuries, a man can amass a respectable fortune.”

  He hands me the wine, but I put it down. He sets his down and comes close to me. “Lauren, you kissed me to heal me. I want to kiss you again. I think you want to be kissed.”

  I touch his naked chest. His skin is slightly cool. My hand rests over his heart and I don’t feel a heartbeat.

  But I don’t care. I care about him—the man inside.

  I cup his face. My fingers play along the sharp ridges of his high cheekbones. I gaze into his dark, reflective eyes. His face is perfect now, but I can’t stop thinking of how he looked with an eye swollen shut, cuts and hideous bruises all over him.

  He endured that for me.

  “Oh God, I want you.” I say it without thinking and I know it sounds awkward. Too blunt, because I’ve never been any good at seducing anyone I’ve liked. Too full of doubts. Having Leo cheat on me made me doubt everything about myself, but right now I don’t care. I need this man too much.

  Leaning in, I let my mouth gently graze his lips. Has he really healed or does it still hurt? I remember how bruised and cut up his mouth was. Keeping my lips soft as pillows, I kiss him tenderly.

  His low, harsh groan makes me stop.

  “Sorry. Does your mouth hurt—?”

  “That meant I liked it, Lauren. I’ve lived for a thousand years and that was the most beautiful kiss I’ve ever had.”