She turned her head, her dark curls scattering across one cheek with the swiftness of the motion. A wave of smells floated to him, as though borne on a breeze. She had taken the time to wash her hair with a fruit-scented shampoo, which meant that she had recently been naked, in a shower or bath. Water had caressed her, dripped over her skin, beading in hidden places.
Ignoring the pulse of excitement this thought brought with it, closing his lips over his extending teeth, Lance stepped back into the overhanging darkness. It wouldn’t really matter how far he removed himself from her, he supposed. The woman who had known him from the helicopter, from afar, would not miss him here.
It’s in her blood.
Still there.
Jesse.
Thinking her name, he watched her carefully. She lifted her head. With a glance in his direction, she held up a hand to excuse herself from the woman speaking to her in a polite gesture that meant “please wait.” She took a step backward and rotated, needing to face the disturbance she had noticed, dialing up her intuitive powers.
Her skin glistened, as if each cell in her body strained to capture and name the disturbance she’d felt. Un deterred by the peripheral movement near the hotel, the people on the sidewalk passing between them and the noise of the cars, Jesse, now full-grown, focused her eyes on the darker bit of night wherein he stood. Her heartbeat signaled her alertness, thudding inside her chest with a burst of adrenaline that echoed loudly inside his head.
“Blood to blood,” he whispered.
She twitched again. Her lips closed. Though her hold on her briefcase tightened, she said nothing, did nothing. Just stood.
“Miss Stewart?” the woman by her side said after a full minute had passed.
“Jesse,” Jesse corrected without moving. “Please call me Jesse.”
Jesse. Lance mouthed the name.
Again a twitch, there, along her shoulders first, and down her spine.
“Jesse, yes, thanks,” the woman continued. “You’ve had a long trip, so we should be going. Is there anything else you need?”
“I’ll see to it she has everything,” a stocky man answered for Jesse.
Sans baseball cap, this was the man who had shared the helicopter with her. He had traded in his sweatshirt for an ill-fitting suit, and looked uncomfortable.
“Very well. Tomorrow, then? At eight?” the woman said, half to the pilot, half to Jesse’s back.
“Eight,” Jesse repeated.
“Eight it is,” the stocky pilot agreed.
“You won’t change your mind about coming to dinner? It’s just down the street,” the woman persisted.
“Do they serve beer?” the pilot asked, seemingly jokingly, because Jesse turned back to the others with a smile playing on her mouth.
Was that a joke between colleagues? Lovers?
A flare of heat seared through Lance’s torso in reaction to the smile she had offered to another man. His fists clenched, unclenched. She felt this, too. The woman once so little and afraid of the dark leaned over as though to set her briefcase on the ground, a ruse to lift her head and again look straight at him.
Her smile dissolved.
Lance’s chest tightened. Won’t you smile for me, Jesse?
But she would not, of course, do so, no matter how much he wished it. A few drops of his blood, back then, dribbled into young Jesse’s wounds, prevented this. A near-fatal attack in a brutal alley prevented this. The blood he had given her, old as he was, strong as he was, had provided her with an edge in a world filled with so many dark, beastly secrets.
It had also, unfortunately, provided her with a key, a connection, to him.
Well, he amended, perhaps not so unfortunately.
“Jesse,” he said quietly. “I’m here.”
Could she hear him?
He watched her straighten so quickly that she turned on one heel. Bright spots of pink tinted her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell, straining at her buttons.
Lance’s gaze fastened on those buttons. Then up to the white collar surrounding a slender neck marred by a jagged white scar of puckered skin that ran nearly full circle from front to back, much like a necklace of woven white thread.
Still there. The scar. Openly visible. Uncovered by a scarf or high-necked sweater. The remnant of a terrible, life-threatening wound, and worn uncovered as what? A badge of courage? An indication of the secrets curled up within her incredibly honed, fighting-fit body?
The scar as a talisman? A remembrance?
Below Lance’s waist something long dormant stirred for the second time in a hundred years. His incisors extended in direct correlation. He ran his tongue over his teeth, felt the familiar razor-sharpness, then blinked slowly, noting how everywhere else his muscles again stretched toward her, as if recognizing a piece of himself.
“I’m waiting,” he said, his voice throaty with greed, lust and longing—for Jesse; sensations he hadn’t experienced since he’d lost his only love in that awful swirl of time gone by. Gwen. Lost to him because he’d refused to bring her over. He’d refused to make her one of what he was, though she had begged.
And now Jesse. What was she to him?
Although caution had prevailed with the injured girl in the dark alley, and though he had been careful with the extent of his gift to her, he had ensured that her little life would continue. He had kept Jesse alive by giving her a few drops of his own ancient blood.
“I can taste you now, on my lips. I know your scent, your sound, the texture of your skin and what races though your veins. I know those round brown eyes,” he said to her from his distance. “There is no mistaking the power of this recognition, or the longing it evokes.”
“Boss?” the stocky helicopter pilot and possible partner called to Jesse.
“Carol isn’t here,” Jesse said. “Golden opportunity with the beer, don’t you think, Stan?”
Stan. A base name. A commoner’s name, Lance thought. A peasant’s body with a peasant’s need for yeast drinks.
Not Jesse’s lover.
Surely not.
“Jesse,” Lance whispered to her again, wanting to touch her, repressing the need to do so. But this time she was ready, Lance saw. This time, Jesse held up a hand—to him. Wait, the gesture implied, begged, proposed. Not now.
Her lips formed a straight line. He wanted to kiss them open, part them with his tongue, indulge his sense of taste. This woman would not
be fragile, weak or easily distracted. She had determination, fire, an edge.
It had been such a very long time since he had felt these things, or allowed himself to feel anything at all.
“Come with me,” he whispered to her.
Her shudder shook him. The becoming pink flush drained away from her cheeks as she retrieved her briefcase and spoke to Stan.
“I’m tired,” she said. “You go along with them. Make them buy you a round.”
Stan studied her intently.
Taking a step in Jesse’s direction was involuntary. Lance’s feet moved independent of his will. Jesse shuddered again. He could sense her fear, manifesting in the air as a metallic cloud, acidic in taste, mingling with the fragrance of her freshly washed hair.
A groan stuck in his throat.
“You sure?” Stan pressed. “What’ll you do?”
“Sleep. Glorious sleep,” Jesse said. “It might be the last chance.”
“I hear you,” Stan conceded. “Eight o’clock will come early. There’s a job to get started.”
Stan had missed her meaning, Lance saw. The daring, deathly double entendre. Last chance to sleep? Did Jesse assume he was here to finish what his brothers had started that night so long ago?
“Yes,” was all Jesse said.
Lance’s head came up.
“Well, then, maybe just two beers, to make sure I sleep,” Stan proposed, again wearing a conspiratorial grin. “Who knows? Maybe three? Then it’s off to what I’m told are four-hundred-count sheets. Whatever the hell that means.”
>
Stan headed after the others, but stopped once more to look at Jesse. “You sure, boss? You’ll be okay? I won’t be long.”
Jesse nodded, tossed her hair and offered a smile that wasn’t genuine.
“Can I ask you a question before I go, boss?” Stan said.
“Shoot.”
“Is a four-hundred-count sheet a good thing?”
“The best,” Jesse replied.
“Something to tell Carol about?”
“Carol will be envious.”
“Right. Good.” Bolstered by this information, Stan waved and turned and disappeared into the night.
Leaving Jesse to him.
Jesse stayed still, her pulse continuing to race.
She said aloud, ignoring every other person within hearing range, “Why are you here?”
Chills leaped up and down her spine. Her overcoat felt heavy, awkward, and might slow her reaction time, she supposed, but she didn’t dare remove it. It took effort just to speak.
Scanning the dark, she was sure she saw him. A blur in the shadows. An unmistakable presence. The pounding of her heart told her so.
“Why did you let your friends go?” the voice asked in turn. The vampire’s voice. Smooth, deep as a well, infinitely alluring. She’d known it would sound like this, grate on her like this, haunt her like this.
“Chances are they don’t know about monsters, and probably wouldn’t be happy to find out,” she replied.
“Monster? Is that what I am?”
“You hide in the dark.”
“Merely to ease your fear.”
Jesse opened her mouth to reply to that, but couldn’t. She was so far beyond fear she’d forgotten what fear felt like.
“You knew me,” the deep voice said in a tone that was both frighteningly eerie and mesmerizingly soft. The voice of darkness itself, spoken from its very soul.
Like velvet sliding over her skin, his presence poured over her. Her trembling returned. With the consistency of honey, the vibrations he caused melted downward, over her stomach and her hips, toward the space between her thighs.
He was doing this to her on purpose. It’s what they do.
“Why are you here?” she repeated in a stronger tone, inching one leg closer to her other to quell the sensation of his fingers drifting across such an intimate place, setting her posture for action. “What do you want?”
“I want to help you.”
“Help me? Are you insane, as well as inhuman?”
A man bumped her elbow. Jesse shook off the touch, only to find a hand firmly gripping her upper arm. Her body reacted with a sway. God … no! She hadn’t even seen him coming.
With trepidation, she looked at the hand on her coat. Gloved in black leather. Long fingers. Wrist covered in black wool. Fine coat. Fine fabric, well-cut and expensive.
Her glance moved upward, even as her other hand reached into her coat pocket. There wasn’t time to get around to the gun nestled against the small of her back.
More inventory. His shoulders were wide. He was very tall, at least six-four. How was it possible for vampires to fuel or maintain muscle growth, or possess all those glossy, golden curls?
She regretted not joining Stan and the others. She thought about shouting, calling them back, warning them. Closing her fingers around the Taser she kept in her pocket, Jesse drew the weapon upward, determined to use it the first chance she got, not knowing if a Taser would do anything to a vampire. Was there anything inside a vampire that could be scrambled by a sudden dose of voltage?
“I won’t hurt you,” the vampire murmured, moving again.
Shocked, Jesse found him behind her, his body pressed to hers. She felt the hardness of him through her overcoat, and sensed the unusual stirring of the air between them.
He had removed his hand from her, didn’t hold her in any way now, having already exhibited the blatant display of what a vampire could do.
No looking at him. Never look at a vampire.
Looking up would mean exposing her neck. In no way was she going to serve up a snack to this freak of nature. Using a Taser might give her time to reach the gun. The revolver would do enough damage on the spot to make him run for cover at least. Lick his wounds, maybe.
“Won’t hurt me?” she said. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.” Pure willpower kept the tremor from her voice.
He was too damn close.
“Actually, I don’t say that to anyone at all. I rarely issue promises,” the vampire replied in a soft, deadly voice.
If dead things were so damn cold, Jesse reasoned, why did she feel heat coming off him? Why did she feel as though he was touching her, when he wasn’t?
There was no way she’d face him or look into those drowning blue eyes. Eyes were mirrors of the soul, and vampires didn’t have souls.
What she needed to do was hit him with the Taser and run, without so much as a single glance in his direction. No last look that said, I’m taking you down.
“Jesse.” The vampire whispered her name like a caress. “I do not lie about this. I am here to help.”
Jesse felt a tug on her hair. The goddamn vampire had touched her, had taken hold of one strand.
Freak!
The Taser was at the level of her hip. Two more inches and she’d have him. If the weapon had no effect, at least she would have tried. Maybe she’d gain precious seconds in which to get away.
Her head arched back, pulled gently but insistently against the vampire’s sturdy chest. Jesse’s hand fumbled as he spoke into her ear.
“Help you,” he reiterated.
But he didn’t mean what the words implied. He meant something else entirely, Jesse was sure. The touch on her hair was sensual. He’d pitched his voice lower yet, and it passed through her like the shot of an electric arrow. His hips were pressed against hers. His heat rushed at her with the force of a tsunami.
“Help with what?” Her question emerged as a faint demand. “What could you help with, other than the possible exception of mentioning where all the other vamps are in this city, so that I can find them all once this assignment has concluded.”
“So.” The vampire sighed. “You hunt. I thought as much.”
His breath moved the hair near her right cheek, pulling her internal heat upward. That was another thing, Jesse reminded herself. Vampires weren’t supposed to have breath.
Again, the huskiness of his voice drifted over her, definitely like velvet—thick, dark, rich. Wrong.
In a moment of near panic, Jesse felt a gathering of moistness between her legs, and wanted to Taser herself. Shock some sense into her treacherous body.
Why hadn’t she already zapped him? He was way too close and too freaking nervy.
What was this thing doing to her?
“If it’s a promise you want, I’ll make it.” The vamp’s suggestion rang with earnestness. “Perhaps we could go somewhere more private and talk things over?”
“You don’t like crowds?” Jesse spoke to get hold of herself. She had to zap him. Any more heat, and her legs would grow weaker than they already were.
“I’m thinking of you,” he said.
“If you were thinking of me, you wouldn’t suggest such a thing.”
“Your face is flushed, yet you’re cold.”
Words spoken like a kiss, like a further promise, so close to her face. So close to her neck.
Fire seared through Jesse’s rigid body. She swayed, caught herself. Snapping her head away from him, she positioned the Taser against his thigh.
She was flushed. She was shocked shitless, but not so very afraid. She’d already knocked at death’s black door and it hadn’t opened. Any time on earth she might have had since that night in the alley when her parents were murdered was not only torture, but stolen. Her mother and father had paid for her extra time with their lives.
Was she frightened of this vampire and his kind? Yes.
But she was not afraid to die.
“It will not harm
me, you know.” The vampire caught her hand, closed his gloved fingers over hers and over the Taser. “Save yourself the trouble. Come with me.”
“Where? Hell?” Was that her voice? Didn’t sound like her.
“I was thinking of someplace more comfortable, like your room,” he said.
“Over my dead—” Jesse closed her mouth.
“Or mine?” the vampire suggested.
“Aren’t you already dead?”
She had turned her head, was looking at him now. Her body followed, still connected to him by his hand on hers.
The vampire was smiling fully, gloriously. His beautiful mouth was full of white teeth, two of them longer than the rest and as sharp as stakes. All of a sudden Jesse wasn’t so sure about the dead part. How could he be dead? This was the golden-haired runner, now dressed in black, who looked at her. The creature with a face so handsome, her eyes ached.
A wayward pulse ricocheted through her arms, legs and nerves, ending where no pulse should end. Where no thoughts or feelings or sensations, even those gone astray, should ever dare to tread. The barriers of which no man had ever dared to penetrate, and sure as hell no dead thing ever would.
Jesse tugged her hand free of his grasp and heard the crack and buzz of the Taser going off against his hip. Nothing happened. The thing, creature, bloodsucker, didn’t even flinch.
The sound of the Taser hitting the sidewalk at their feet seemed important somehow, and tinny.
“Perhaps you’re tired,” the arrogant vamp suggested. “It’s obvious that you’re not thinking clearly. I did warn you about the weapon.”
“And I’m thinking maybe I won’t sleep tonight. Maybe I’ll work all night and sleep during the day, when you can’t find me.”
The golden vampire smiled again, as if he thought her statement funny and her threats benign. He grinned casually, as though he wasn’t one of the walking dead, as if his presence wasn’t threatening and as if this unusual connection that had brought them together might be fate instead of lust for American blood types.
Tomorrow, Jesse thought, she’d be gone from this place.
“Oh,” he said casually, as if he had read her last thought. “Never fear that I can’t find you, Jesse, if I try.”
Golden Vampire Page 3
