Fury Calls

by Caridad Piñeiro

  He handed it to her just as Diego said, “Not much of a gardener, is he?”

  He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the mess on the patio.

  Meghan took the cooler and popped open the top. Nestled in ice were half a dozen or so blood bags.

  Diego motioned to them and said, “You should feed often. It’ll be your blood that makes the difference.”

  She understood the warning in his message.

  With a curt nod, she acknowledged her understanding. But there was one thing she had to know before she returned to her lover.

  “What about Lee?”

  “Alive for now. We turned him and his two pals over for judgment,” Ryder said.

  Swift and sure justice, she was certain. Vampires left nothing unresolved and unavenged.

  She bid her two friends goodbye and walked back into the apartment. Blake slept on, his skin pale, the rise of his chest nearly imperceptible.

  Placing the cooler on a nearby table, she opened it and pulled out the first bag. She punctured the bag with her fangs and sucked down the blood and then drained another. By the third bag she wanted to retch since she hated feeding. In the nearly four years she had been a vampire, she had never gotten quite used to it.

  She did it to survive and only when she had to keep the demon at bay.

  This time she had to do it for Blake. Already she could feel her vampire body metabolizing the blood and making her stronger. Because of that, she sucked down the third bag of blood and sat there, feeling the energy surge through her veins and heat her body.

  Heat that Blake would welcome, she knew. Heat that would keep him with her.

  She let the throw fall to the floor and eased back into bed beside him. He roused as she pressed her body to his and warmed him.

  Blake opened his eyes and thought he had gone to heaven. She was beside him, lush and warm. Her breasts brushing his chest and side as she threw her thigh over his leg, sharing the heat of her body and dispelling the chill that had worked its way into his once again.

  The chill that told him this wasn’t heaven, but hell. Hell because he didn’t want to leave her now. He didn’t want to, but there was so little strength left in his body. The pain in his back and deep within his chest reminded him that he hadn’t completely healed and the longer that the internal bleeding continued and he was injured…

  He refused to entertain that thought. Not now. Not when she was finally beside him. Willingly. Lovingly.

  “You feel good, Meghan,” he murmured and wrapped an arm around her waist to urge her closer.

  “I’ll feel even better after you’ve had a bite,” she teased, sensing the maudlin turn of his thoughts. She pulled aside the blond strands of her shoulder-length hair, baring the fine line of her neck.

  “Are you sure?” He reached up and laid the pads of his fingers against the pulse there. He stroked the graceful line of her neck down to the crook of her shoulder.

  “Never more sure,” she answered, and lowered herself over his body, granting him easier access.

  He didn’t ask again.

  She was offering him life and love, and he wasn’t about to refuse such an offer.

  Chapter 26

  Meghan didn’t know how long they had been repeating the cycle. She would feed from the blood bags that Diego and Ryder brought and grow stronger. In turn, she would sink back into their bed, nourish Blake and weaken from his feeding. But with each time he suckled from her, he grew stronger until with the last go, she finally felt comfortable that Blake would survive.

  Diego had returned sometime during the course of those cycles, bringing not only more blood, but also the news that Foley was managing to hang on.

  “And Diana?” she asked, wondering at what had happened with the determined FBI agent.

  “Ryder’s tending to her. What about Blake? Will I need to hire another hand for the kitchen?”

  Meghan had given him a playful shove as they talked out on the patio. “Admit it. He came through for us.”

  Diego had chuckled and ruefully shaken his head. “If I did that, Blake might be insufferable.”

  With that he had leapt off the rooftop to the next building, and Meghan had returned inside to feed yet again.

  When she slipped into bed this time, Blake was already awake and the gleam in his eyes said he was ready for more than a nip of her neck.

  Her lips curved into a brazen smile as she sauntered toward him, eager to celebrate their victory over Lee and death.

  Blake propped himself up on one arm as she moved toward him, the glide of her body sensuous and filled with promise. There was only a slight hitch high up on his shoulder blade as he did so, as if to caution him that he still needed to take care. But another part of him wasn’t listening, rising up immediately and demandingly.

  Her eyes narrowed and dropped to where the sheet shifted, straining against his arousal. One edge of her lips quirked up saucily as she laid a knee on the edge of the bed and said, “I see that you’re feeling better.”

  He slid across the sheets and with his free hand, cupped her breast and gently squeezed. “You’re feeling right fine yourself, Meghan.”

  She chuckled and eased in beside him, her front pressed to his. She insinuated her knee between his thighs and closed the distance at their hips, cradling his erection with the softness of her belly. He realized then she had no intention of rushing this moment, and he was totally on board with that.

  As they lay side by side, he placed his hand on her waist and then slowly trailed it up to cup her breast once again. She did the same, running her hand up the muscle of his side, lingering by the pink skin where he had been wounded.

  “Don’t think about that now, Meghan,” he urged. She nodded and raised her hand to his nipple, where she ran her finger around and around the edge of it.

  Each circle of that sensitive nub sent a jolt between his legs, and siren that she was, she knew and pressed forward, applying gentle pressure with her thigh up into him. He moaned as she rubbed her thigh back and forth across him.

  He tweaked her nipple with a little more force, yanking a soft gasp from her. Bending his head, he soothed the tip with a soft lick. When she cradled his head to her, he accepted the invitation, loving her with his mouth while he eased his hand down between their bodies and found her center.

  He stroked the swollen nub between her legs and sucked a little more roughly on the hard tip of her breast.

  Meghan dragged in a shaky breath and cradled the back of his head, loving the feel of him. Of the way he treasured her with his mouth and fingers. Heat built within her, and as he eased one finger and then another into her, she clenched her muscles around him and tilted her hips, wanting more.

  He picked up his head from her breast, brought his mouth to hers and whispered against her lips, “Love me, Meghan.”

  Shifting onto his back, he cradled her waist and urged her onto his body.

  Her belly pressed into him a second before her thighs straddled his. She rubbed her body up and down the length of him, her softness enticing him, not that he seemed to need it.

  He grasped her waist firmly and urged her upward, settling her over his hardness. Dampening him before he urged her to lift her hips, she positioned him at her entrance.

  The tip of him breached her, but she stopped there, the moment suspended in time. The moment she had been waiting for in two lifetimes now.

  “There’s no going back after this,” she said, wanting him to understand.

  He reached up and cupped her jaw, shot her a boyish grin that stopped her heart for a moment. “There’s only one woman I’ve loved in both my lifetimes.”

  As she slowly sank onto him, burying him inside, she said, “It had damn well better be me.”

  He surged up off the bed and sank his fingers into her hair, keeping her immobile as he chuckled and whispered against her lips, “Damn well is, Meghan.”

  She smiled and shifted her hips, giving herself over to the wonder of loving him.
To the tenderness in the way he treasured her body. To the laughter and joy that seemed never far from their hearts. They loved each other until neither of them could move.

  Later, cuddled beside him, their legs entwined and his softening erection tucked safely within her, she slipped her arm around his body and brushed a kiss across his lips. Beneath her mouth she felt his grin and pulled him tight until they were touching from belly to breast.

  His hand at the small of her back brushed up and down lazily, soothing her. She sighed with pleasure and said, “Will it always be like this?”

  Blake bit back the too-quick rejoinder on his lips about being immortal. For them, nothing would change. There would be no sagging chins or bulging bellies. No children to interrupt them in the middle of the night because he hadn’t known that was a gift it might have been possible to give.

  How he wished he had known. How he wished to see her round with child, to see his babe suckling at her breast.

  But that was all impossible because of his one selfish act.

  She must have sensed the tension that crept into his body with his thoughts. She raised her index finger and smoothed the frown line across his forehead. In a soft whisper, she said, “Don’t think about that.”

  “I’ve taken so much from you. How can you ever—”

  She laid her fingers across his lips. With a shake of her head, she said, “I hated you for stealing my life. But when I think about all that I almost just lost and all the love you’ve given me…”

  She stroked her fingers across his lips and with another shake of her head, said, “I have no regrets, Blake. I love you.”

  He smiled and with a cocky jerk of his shoulder said, “I guess things turned out well after all.”

  “Damn you, Blake,” she said and rolled over him, imprisoning him beneath her, which quickly had him hardening within her. “Can’t you be serious just this once?”

  Chuckling, he reversed their positions and pinned her arms above her. He shifted his hips, drawing a mewl of pleasure from her as he said, “Is this serious enough? I’ll love you forever, Meghan. Forever.”

  And as he moved in her again, they both knew it was a promise he intended to keep.

  Epilogue

  Otro Mundo

  A few days later

  Blake hadn’t really been sure that he could muster a shift of work. Although the wounds Lee had inflicted on him had completely healed, he knew his strength was not what it should be, but Meghan had insisted that he return to the restaurant that night.

  Like most things involving Meghan, he hadn’t been able to say no.

  As he walked through the service entrance, he realized that only the vampire employees were waiting within. At his quizzical look, they began to clap and cheer, dragging a blush of color to his face. He wasn’t used to that kind of praise and it created the kind of warmth in him that his mother’s gentle touch had once roused. Or Meghan’s caring caress.

  Meghan, he thought with a happy sigh as she stepped up beside him and grabbed his hand. At his puzzled look, she said, “They all appreciate what you did to help keep this place safe.”

  He gave a nonchalant shrug and accepted the well wishes as he walked farther into the kitchen area. He felt guilty about the reception, since he hadn’t really done it to save the restaurant for them. He had done it for Meghan, although all had benefited from his actions.

  Ryder and Diego stood by the hall leading to the pantry and the office, their faces stern as he approached, but Ryder quickly broke into a grin as Diego whipped out something from behind him—a suit bag.

  Diego held it out to him and he hesitantly accepted it, unzipped the bag for a peek. Inside was a navy blue suit, but nothing like the polyester one he had sported for his interview a few weeks ago.

  As he brushed his thumb across the fabric, he realized the suit was made of the finest wool. Beneath the suit on the hanger was a pale blue cotton shirt that would make his eyes quite striking.

  “What’s this?” he asked, shooting anxious glances from Diego to Ryder and then to Meghan, who was standing off to the side.

  “Figured you wouldn’t be up to any lifting and we could use some help up front. Can’t have one of our hosts looking like that,” Diego said, a mock curl of disdain as he motioned to Blake’s black ensemble of jeans, T-shirt and a new leather jacket to replace the one Lee had ruined with his knife attack.

  “I won’t let you down,” he said, with a little bounce of the bag.

  “We know you won’t,” Ryder said. “You can get changed in our office.”

  He nodded and was about to walk away when something else occurred to him. “How’s Foley?”

  Ryder immediately answered. “He’s in one of my guest rooms, healing slowly. Melissa is helping him get better with her doctoring.”

  “And the missus? Is she okay?” he asked. Meghan stepped to his side, slipped her hand into his.

  “Go get changed,” she urged, but Ryder held up his hand, his face serious once again.

  “Diana is…Since she’s on leave and everything is fine here, she decided she needed a little rest and relaxation. She’s headed to Miami for a visit with her mother.”

  Contrary to Ryder’s assertion, Blake suspected that not all was fine with the FBI agent and his friend Ryder.

  His friend, Blake thought with some surprise. He stepped forward, laid a hand on Ryder’s shoulder and gripped it tightly. “I’m here when you need me.”

  Ryder nodded and said, “Let’s hope that we’ve all had our share of excitement for the immediate future.”

  But as Blake considered just how much had happened to their little circle of friends in the last few years, he suspected they were in for quite a few more adventures together.

  And he planned to be in the thick of them.

  As Meghan tightened her grip on his hand, he met her gaze and realized he wouldn’t be alone this time.

  She would be with him, and the strength of their love would sustain them no matter what the future brought.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-3003-7

  FURY CALLS

  Copyright © 2009 by Caridad Piñeiro Scordato

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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