Vampire Most Wanted: An Argeneau Novel (Argeneau Vampire)

by Lynsay Sands

  “Whatever,” the fellow laughed, his voice growing fainter.

  Marcus tipped his head to watch the group reach the front of the RV and turn left to walk along the back lot. He waited a moment, and then glanced around, checking under the RVs in all directions to be sure no one else was approaching. Only then did he slide out from under the RV, taking Divine with him again. Once he had them both in the lane between vehicles, Marcus quickly stood and then stooped to scoop up Divine.

  She wasn’t sleeping. Divine didn’t even stir. She was definitely unconscious, which was another sign of life mates; they usually passed out during or after life mate sex. The thought made him cuddle her closer against his chest. She was his. His life mate, his partner, the light that would stave off the darkness over the next two millennia or more of his life. She would be his reason for rising in the morning and she would be why he went to bed at night at peace with his world . . . so long as she wasn’t Basha Argeneau.

  That thought made Marcus frown. She couldn’t be Basha. She was Divine.

  “Divine,” he murmured softly, tasting the name on his lips. She had certainly chosen the right name for herself. She was divine, in every way.

  Marcus was still smiling at that thought as he carried her around the RV to the door halfway down the passenger side. This RV was not custom-made. It was your standard setup. Rather than a door at the back, the door was on the side and led directly into a combined kitchenette and lounge, though the kitchenette was on the left and the lounge on the right with a curtain that could be drawn between the two as it had been in Divine’s RV. Beyond the kitchenette was where the bedroom was, and behind it, running from one side of the RV to the other, was the tiny bathroom with a shower at one end, the toilet at the other, and a sink in the middle.

  Divine had parked the RV next to the fencing around a ride called the Zipper. She’d parked it with the back end a little farther out than the back end of Vincent’s RV so that the side door was visible and easily accessible where the fence around the Zipper curved back.

  Marcus stopped at the door and shifted Divine a bit to be able to open it, but paused and glanced around at the sound of footsteps rushing toward him.

  “What happened?” Jackie gasped as she reached them. Her worried gaze slid over Divine. “Was she attacked again?”

  Marcus grimaced. He supposed that depended on how you looked at it. He certainly hadn’t been overly gentle or careful in what had passed between them. Although he didn’t think it would be classified as an attack, unless you wanted to say she attacked him too. They’d both behaved like animals really . . . and it had been awesome!

  “She’s fine,” he assured her as Jackie pulled the screen door out of the way and reached to open the inner wooden door for him. “She just . . . fainted.”

  “Does she need blood?” Jackie asked with concern, following him as he carried Divine inside.

  “No. She’s fine,” he repeated as she flipped on the lights. “A little rest and she’ll be as right as rain.”

  “But what—?”

  The way she stopped so abruptly made him glance her way to see that she was staring wide-eyed down at Divine. Marcus followed her gaze, biting his lip when he saw that Divine’s peasant blouse was still pulled down from when he’d been lavishing her breasts with attention. They were on full view and her nipples were still erect. When Jackie then glanced to his ripped shirt and he switched his own gaze there to see that his own nipples were also still erect, he sighed with resignation.

  “Oh,” she said with sudden understanding and then arched an eyebrow as she looked them both over again more fully, taking in their filthy state. “Outside in the dirt?”

  Marcus grimaced and merely said, “We’re definitely life mates. One kiss and we both lost all sense.”

  “Yeah.” Jackie sighed the word with a little smile and warned, “It’s going to happen again and again, and don’t think good intentions will stop it. One touch, a kiss . . .” She shrugged helplessly. “You two might as well just lock yourselves up in here for the next year and have fun, because you’ll be useless for anything else.”

  “Somehow I don’t think Divine would go for that,” Marcus said dryly, carrying her through the RV to the bedroom at the back.

  “No, perhaps not,” Jackie agreed, following, flicking on lights as she went. She paused in the doorway to the bedroom, turned on that light as well, and then watched him set Divine on the bed before saying, “Okay, so . . . then you might want to avoid certain situations.”

  Marcus straightened next to the bed and raised an eyebrow. “What situations?”

  Jackie pursed her lips and then began to list things off on her fingers. “Public elevators, movie theaters, moving vehicles unless someone else is driving—”

  “You’re kidding,” Marcus interrupted with amusement. “Moving vehicles?”

  “She’s not kidding,” Vincent said, appearing behind his wife. Slipping his arm around her waist, he tugged her back against his chest and kissed the top of her head before saying, “You haven’t lived until you find yourself flying down the highway at top speed with your life mate bouncing around on your lap, shrieking with pleasure like a crazed baboon.”

  Jackie flushed with embarrassment and elbowed her husband in the stomach, making him release her as she muttered, “You were the one shrieking like a crazed baboon.”

  “Perhaps I was,” Vincent agreed with a grin as Jackie pushed past him to get out of the confined space.

  “I’ve seen your car,” Marcus said dryly. “I wouldn’t think there was enough room in that little Lexus to—”

  “It’s a convertible,” Vincent interrupted. “The top was down.”

  “Dear God,” Marcus muttered as he got the visual. He was surprised there hadn’t been a pile-up, or a video caught and put on YouTube.

  “It was the middle of the night,” Vincent said with a shrug, and then added, “Thank God. I wasn’t much good for steering, and I damned near passed out before I could pull over to the shoulder and get us stopped.”

  “You passed out on the side of the highway?” Marcus asked with disbelief. That seemed damned risky.

  “Yeah. It was,” Vincent said as if he’d spoken the thought aloud. “We got lucky, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Marcus shook his head and then turned to peer down at Divine, quickly tugging her blouse back into place when he realized she was still on view. Only then did Vincent leave the door to join him.

  “How did she take finding out you’re her life mate?”

  Marcus grimaced. “She seemed a bit upset before I kissed her.”

  “Hmm.” Vincent nodded, not appearing surprised. “Did she say anything useful before you two got too caught up?”

  “Do grunts and moans count?” Marcus asked dryly. “It came over us pretty quickly.”

  “Yeah, it does,” Vincent acknowledged. “Jackie wasn’t kidding about places to stay away from. She’s probably making a list as we speak.”

  They both chuckled at that, but then Vincent sobered and said, “But in case she forgets it, definitely stay away from any grocery shopping at night. And the store freezer is not a good spot to drag her to if things get hot and heavy.”

  When Marcus turned to peer at him with disbelief, he nodded solemnly. “I must have fallen off of her as I passed out. When I woke up three of the night crew were standing there gawking at us like idiots and my dick was frozen to a metal shelf.” He winced at the memory and muttered, “Nasty.”

  Marcus shook his head with a sort of horror, and then grabbed him by the shoulders, turned Vincent toward the door and gave him a push to get him moving. “Get out of here. I don’t want to hear any more of this.”

  “Just trying to give you some helpful advice,” Vincent said with a shrug, but he did leave the room.

  Marcus walked over and was about to close the door when Vincent appeared again and announced, “I ran a hose to the water supply while you two were making out between the RVs.
Since you were busy I hooked you guys up too and then plugged both RVs into the power supply. You have power and water if you want to take a shower and wash away some of that dirt.”

  Marcus glanced down at himself, able to see just how filthy he was in the lit room. He was covered with a layer of dust so thick his black jeans looked almost beige.

  “You’re welcome,” Vincent added as he turned and headed away.

  “Thanks,” Marcus called out belatedly, but was frowning as he did. What had Vincent meant when he’d said while you two were making out between the RVs? Had he actually seen them? Or was he just guessing?

  Marcus sighed and closed the bedroom door. It didn’t really matter what Vincent had meant. If the man had seen them . . . well, Marcus could hardly make him unsee what he’d witnessed, so he might as well just forget about it, Marcus told himself as he crossed the bedroom to the door to the bathroom.

  He grimaced when he saw the size of the room. It was little better than an airplane bathroom with a shower on the end, Marcus thought, but knew that wasn’t true. It was a little roomier than that, but would still be a bit confining for a man his size.

  Shrugging, he turned on the water and quickly stripped his clothes.

  Fifteen

  Divine woke up with a terrible need to relieve herself. That was her first and only thought as she sat up in bed and swung her feet to the floor. She hurried to the door, thrust it open, and then paused abruptly as she recognized Vincent and Jackie’s borrowed RV. She’d forgotten for a moment that this wasn’t her RV. In her RV, the bathroom had been along the sidewall outside the bedroom. In this one . . .

  She turned and hurried back across the room, rushing into the bathroom there. Divine hiked up her skirt, tugged down her panties, and settled on the toilet so quickly she probably would have been a blur to anyone watching. Immortal speed rocked, she thought on a little sigh of relief as she proceeded to—as a carnie she once knew would have put it—piss like a racehorse. She’d really had to go. Probably all the blood they’d given her for the healing, Divine thought, and wondered that the noise she was making wasn’t drowning out the sound of the rain outside. She’d been vaguely aware of the sound of splashing water as she woke up, but hadn’t paid it much attention. Now, however, it seemed louder to her, almost like the water was actually falling—

  Her bowed head jerking up, Divine peered at the shower across from her, noted the figure inside, and couldn’t hold back a muttered “Oh crap.”

  “Please don’t.”

  Marcus was in the shower with his very bare back to her, but she could hear the amusement in his voice as he said those words and knew he was teasing her. She wanted to give a light chuckle and say something witty. After all this wasn’t the first time she’d been caught out in a situation like this. She’d lived too damned long not to have experienced this or a similar scenario a hundred times over. But none of those scenarios had included Marcus, and rather than handle it with the insouciance she wanted to, Divine groaned and closed her eyes as her face flamed what she suspected was a violent red.

  “I guess this means the romance phase of our relationship is over, huh?” he teased.

  Divine’s eyes popped open at the sudden silence as the sound of running water suddenly stopped. He’d turned off the shower. That meant he’d be getting out, she thought with dismay.

  “I mean they say once a couple starts doing these kinds of things in front of each other, the honeymoon stage is done and they’re into the relationship phase.” Marcus stepped out of the very tiny shower, into the tiny room just inches away, and grabbed a towel to quickly dry himself, elbows banging into the wall as he did.

  Divine bit her lip and belatedly dropped her skirt, letting it settle around her. She then tried to sit there, pretending she was sitting on a chair rather than the porcelain throne, all while avoiding looking at a very big, very naked Marcus standing just inches away from her.

  “Stop staring at my cock, you’re making it grow.”

  Divine blinked at those growled words, mortified to realize she had been staring. So much for avoiding looking . . . and damn, it was growing.

  “You’re still staring,” he warned.

  “Well, stop waving it around in front of me if you don’t like it,” she snapped, forcing her eyes away. “Cover it up or something.”

  Marcus chuckled and then caught her face with one hand, to turn it back and up so he could press a kiss to her lips. She suspected he’d meant it to be a quick peck. It didn’t end up that way. Fire leaped between them at the first touch, both mouths opened, tongues were engaged, and Divine so forgot herself she was about to wrap her arms around his shoulders and climb him like a telephone pole when he suddenly broke the kiss and straightened.

  They were both panting and simply stared at each other briefly, then Marcus growled, “I’m going to go lay down. Naked.”

  Divine’s eyes widened and she watched silently as he snatched his clothes off the floor, turned, and slid out of the room, tugging the door closed. She sat there for one more moment, before moved to action. She finished her business, and almost raced out of the bathroom after him, but then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the sink as she washed her hands. She was a mess, hair mussy, skin filthy . . .

  Turning to the shower she opened the door and twisted the knobs to get the water running, then quickly stripped her clothes.

  Divine spent much longer in the shower than she normally would have, mostly because once she was in there she started to think of all the reasons why she shouldn’t have done what she had, and shouldn’t do it again. The main reason was that she was a wanted woman, hunted by the man Marcus apparently worked for. Not that he’d admitted as much yet.

  What she needed to do was to learn what she could from Marcus, find out what he knew, what Lucian knew, and what she could do to keep her son and herself safe. That thought firmly in mind, Divine finished her shower and stepped out to quickly dry herself. She then eyed her clothes with distaste. They were filthy, but it didn’t seem smart to walk out of the bathroom in a towel, not if she wanted to actually talk to Marcus and not end up naked and unconscious in the bed.

  Grimacing, she picked up her blouse and gave it a shake, then donned it and used the towel to brush away what she could of the dust and dirt clinging to it. Once satisfied she’d done the best she could with the item, Divine did the same with the skirt. She just couldn’t bring herself to re-don her panties and bra though. This would have to do, she decided, took a deep breath, pinned a smile on her face, and left the bathroom.

  Divine had expected Marcus to be waiting for her in the bedroom, so was a bit startled to find it empty. After a hesitation, she moved to the bedroom door and opened it to peer out into the rest of the RV, surprised to find him working busily in the kitchenette. He was even dressed. Sort of. The man had his jeans on, but was shirtless. He was a beautiful sight like that, his still-damp hair slicked back, chest muscles glistening in the overhead light and rippling as he sliced cheese on a cutting board on the table.

  “Stop looking at me like that or we aren’t going to get to eat this lovely fare Jackie made for us,” he said without glancing up, his voice light.

  Divine relaxed and even managed a smile. Moving toward the table, she said just as lightly, “It looks to me like you’re the one making this lovely fare.”

  “I washed the fruit, took the salad out and put it in bowls, and am now cutting cheese, but Jackie made the casserole that smells so delicious,” he assured her and then finally glanced up. His eyes began to glow as they slid over her in her still slightly dusty clothes and then he lowered them again to what he was doing. “Damn, I was sure I was hungry for food when I smelled it, but now—”

  “Now I’m hungry,” Divine said firmly and sat down at the place setting across from him. She also forced herself to stop gawping at his chest like some lovesick calf and, instead, focused on examining the contents of the table.

  The casserole did smell d
elicious and everything else looked good too. Still, Divine was surprised when her stomach suddenly grumbled. It was a sound she hadn’t heard since . . . well, she couldn’t remember when she’d last heard her body make that sound. It had been a long time since she’d last eaten food, and just as long since she’d felt hunger. Like most immortals she’d stopped eating after a hundred years or so of living. Eating had grown tiresome and food had seemed tasteless and boring.

  It didn’t smell boring or tasteless now.

  “Here.” Marcus picked up the cutting board and used the knife to slide several pieces of cheese onto her plate. He then set that down and scooped up some casserole to add to her plate as well before pushing the bowl holding the grapes and strawberries next to the bowl of salad he’d set beside her plate. “We have a couple of dressings to choose from. Apparently it goes on the salad, but I don’t know what’s good and what’s not.”

  Divine shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out,” she said, reaching for a grape from the bowl. She popped it into her mouth, bit into it, and closed her eyes as the sweet juice burst across her tongue. Dear God it was . . . luscious, lovely, sweet, wet.

  “Try the strawberries,” Marcus suggested when she reached toward the bowl again. “They’re even better.”

  Divine immediately changed direction, reaching for the red fruit instead of the green, seedless balls of juice called grapes. She popped one of the berries in her mouth and bit down and found he was right. The strawberries were—

  Marcus glanced up from his cutting with surprise when Divine grimaced and spat out the slightly chewed strawberry. He glanced at it briefly and then wrinkled his nose. “I don’t believe you’re supposed to eat the stem and leafy bits. I’ve seen others eat them and they leave that part.”

  “Oh,” Divine muttered, using the napkin he’d set beside her plate to wipe her mouth.

  “Try another,” he suggested, picking up a large plump one and holding it out. “Just bite the fruit off though; I’ll hold on to the stem and leafy bit.”