Something Secret This Way Comes: Secret McQueen, Book 1 (28 page)

She didn’t know when she had started trusting him, a moment ago, a day ago, maybe a part of her had started trusting him the moment he rang her doorbell. But his trust of her seemed to hinge on that moment in the tank. Sure, she’d done it so he would believe her, but now she was suspicious of that instant faith.

Nate levered himself away from the slots. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.” He started to reach for her hand again, then snatched his hand back. His eyes scanned her from her flip-flop bedecked toes all the way up to her still-damp hair, as if checking for war wounds.

Ciara rolled her eyes. “I’m
fine
. Better than fine. I’m—” Again words failed. This feeling, it was too much. “Come on. We’ve got a necklace to find.”

She grabbed his hand and dragged him behind her toward the street exit. Ciara felt like laughing, though she didn’t know why.

She wore his jacket over her dress—the shawl a casualty of her dunking—but as soon as they stepped out of the air-conditioning of the casino, she shrugged it off. The sun hit the skin of her arms and felt delicious. For once she was outside, surrounded by people and not worried about being brushed against.

Though maybe she should be worried. What if it was only Nate she could touch?

He hailed a taxi and ushered her into the backseat, careful as he had been all week not to touch her skin.

“The Borgata, please,” she told the driver.

Nate climbed in after her. “No,” he said, “let’s go back to the hotel. You can rest—”

“The Borgata,” she repeated, more firmly. No more invalid treatment. No more hiding.

There were a million things she’d never done. Too many things. A wild excitement pulsed through her veins. A thousand possibilities.

She could eat in a restaurant, dance in a club, go to a movie in a crowded theater where the schmuck next to her would steal her armrest. She could fly on a plane. Go to Egypt or Bermuda or Taiwan. She didn’t know why she should want to go to Taiwan unless she was picking up a few sweatshop workers, but the fact that she
could
changed everything. It changed
her
.

Nate wedged himself against the car door, as far away from her as he could get without leaping into oncoming traffic.

“What are you doing way over there?”

“Recovering from the heart attack you gave me on the pier,” he snapped. “And trying to figure out how to talk you into going back to the hotel and leaving the jewel thieves to the professionals.”

“I thought I was a suspect,” she purred, scooting across the bench seat toward him. “Don’t you want my confession?”

He leaned away, pressing into the door. “You aren’t a crook. I believe you. Now back off, before you give yourself another seizure.”

Ciara kept her eyes locked on his, slowly shaking her head. “Nate, for the first time in the last decade, I can touch someone without feeling like someone dropped a cherry bomb into my brain. Do you honestly think I’m not going to take advantage of this for every second it lasts?” She reached out and laid her fingers along his jaw. She
listened
and the touch sang through her, a perfect pitch ringing sweetly, deep inside her rib cage.

She slid her fingers down, drawing them along the column of his throat, listening as the note shifted with his every breath. Her eyes fixed on his mouth, the delicious masculine curve of it.

Ten years. She hadn’t been kissed in ten years.

“Nate,” she whispered. Her upper body leaned forward of its own volition, closing the distance between them. She wet her lips.

“This is a bad idea. I don’t think—”

“Don’t think. It’s overrated.” Ciara’s eyelids lowered, but she watched him through her lashes, not wanting to miss a single detail of the kiss. She brushed her lips ever so softly over his, a fleeting whisper of a touch. His breath was warm on her lips. His stubble grazed her fingertips, the tantalizing spice of his aftershave teasing her nose. Ciara pressed a closed-mouth kiss full on his mouth and a chord struck in her soul. She placed one hand over his heart, feeling his strength through the thin cloth of his shirt. She wanted bare flesh under her fingers. She wanted to bathe in touch, skin to skin.

Nate kept his mouth closed, his head back. He was frozen against the door, as if afraid to touch her.

Or as if he didn’t want her touch.

Ciara drew back. Her eyes flew wide to find him watching her, his gaze steady and concerned.

“You don’t—” She hesitated. Crap. With her luck, he was probably gay. Just because he seemed like a big strong macho man and gaped at her naked girly bits whenever the opportunity presented itself didn’t mean he wasn’t batting for the other team. “You aren’t—” She couldn’t very well ask him what his sexual orientation was five seconds after she planted one on him.

God, her people skills sucked. That’s what happened when you lived in a freaking bubble for a decade and learned all of your social skills from the television and internet. Had she missed some signal?

He watched her. God, the way he watched her. It made her feel like she was edible, sweet and sinful, and he was hungry for some decadent indulgence. Would a gay man look at her like that?

But if he wasn’t gay, what the hell was he doing cowering beside the door like she was molesting him against his will. His body was eerily still, but his eyes raced over her.

“Are you okay?” he asked, an odd urgency running under the words.

Was she
okay
? She kissed him. He didn’t kiss her back. And now he was concerned that…what?

“That didn’t hurt you?” His voice was rough.

Ciara blinked, the pieces suddenly jolting into place. Of course. Mr. All-American was concerned for her well-being. His moral fortitude prevented him from enjoying a kiss if it might be hurting her. Damn moral fortitude. Why couldn’t he just take advantage of her like a normal man?

“I’m fine,” she assured him in a rush. “Great, actually. It feels amazing.”

“Good.”

Before she had time to react to that guttural growl, his hands were on her arms. He hauled her forward across his lap. His mouth crashed down on hers, urging her to open for him, and a symphony exploded inside her. Ciara threw her arms around his neck and held on tight. She parted her lips and his tongue slipped between them, a whip of heat unfurling in her stomach with each flick.

She didn’t remember kisses like this. She remembered the fumbling, groping, wide-open-mouthed attempts of her adolescence, before her curse hit. This was unlike any of those. This was skill and persuasion, seduction and heat. As a fiery concerto radiated out from her soul, a clenching warmth rose up from her toes, tingling along every nerve. Nate’s hands chased those tingles and multiplied them, tracing her curves through the thin barrier of her clothes.

He raised his head. His eyes searched hers as they clung together, both breathing rapidly. “Ciara?”

“More, Nate,” she whispered. “Please, touch me more.”

He groaned and crushed her to him, instantly obeying. His mouth slanted down on hers and she fell into sensation.

Her blood is his lifeline. His love could be her salvation….

In the Blood

© 2011 Abigail Barnette

Call girl Cassandra Connely drifts through life in a haze of guilt and sedatives, burdened by a deadly mistake from her past and plagued by nightmares of horrific, clawed creatures. Her newest client is a mouth-watering distraction, and she finds herself intrigued by Viktor Novotny’s eccentric…tastes. Until he touches her, and her nightmares become real.

One look at the woman in the hot red dress, and Viktor rests assured he will hang onto his humanity at least one more night. In the century since an attack turned him into a vampire and killed his wife, regular sexual encounters are his only defense against becoming a mindless Minion. Yet when Cassie agrees to be his companion—and meal—for the evening, she stirs his soul in a way he hasn’t felt since his lost lover.

Viktor’s haunted eyes pull at her heart, but Cassie cannot bear to feel anything, ever again. When she flees his apartment, though, she is in more peril than she knows. Tasting her blood without completing their union has left Viktor hungry for no other but her. And vulnerable to the very Minions that wait to drag him into the void. Worse, Cassie is their next target…

Warning:
Contains explicit love scenes that will make your blood boil over, including a brief m/m encounter, ill-advised (but oh-so-sexy) use of sharp objects, and hypnotic kisses that could—just for a moment—make you imagine you are Viktor’s lady of the night
.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
In the Blood:

Viktor laid a hand on her knee, and it was cold through her jeans. “Are you all right?”

She nodded stupidly. Of course she wasn’t all right. Nothing was all right. Either the monsters of her dreams were real or Viktor was part of her hallucination. In either case, she was crazy, and she had no clue how long she’d been that way.

For a long time, she said nothing, and he did not try to engage her. She stared out the window, imagining that all of the people on the sidewalks would turn to her with blank faces and yellow teeth. A woman juggled a paper bag of groceries on her arm, and Cassie watched with terrorized fascination, waiting for her to expose her startling lack of features. When she did turn her head, she was only another human being, but Cassie still startled.

Finally, she had the courage to ask Viktor. “What were those things?”

“Vampires.” The word was hard and unapologetic.

She nodded again, content to withdraw and continue staring out the dark-tinted glass as she slowly lost her mind.

Viktor was not as content to let her. “It was my fault. My mark is on you now, from feeding. They can track you, as they can track me.”

“Your mark?” Cassandra shook her head. “Did you know that would happen to me? That monsters would try to attack me? And you drank my blood anyway?”

Jesus, what was she saying? She couldn’t possibly believe a word he had to say.

“Usually, it does not happen this way. If we had—”

“Why would they be tracking you? They’re my nightmares. I’ve been dreaming about them my whole life.” Well, not her whole life. Ever since the accident. But she didn’t feel like rehashing those details with a stranger.

“They’re tracking me because they wish to make me one of them.” He cleared his throat and looked away, out the window, as though he were ashamed to meet her eyes. “I have taken a life before, out of hunger. It fractured my soul, as such an act always does, and they are…attracted to that kind of despair. I carry a scent that is irresistible to Minions. When I fed off you, it mingled our essences. If we had…finished our business together, the humanity restored to me through the act would have lessened my connection to you. But I let you leave my apartment. Then, stupidly, I led them to your home.” He looked out his own window, hopelessness lining his face. “I should have known better.”

An angry laugh burst from her throat. “About what? About vampires?”

“Yes, about vampires.”

The authority with which he spoke was dangerous, pulled Cassie in, made her want to believe every word he said. Yet her brain refused to adapt to this new and absurd reality. “You can’t just say that to me. My life can’t be part of your sick fantasies. There isn’t enough money in the world to—”

“What do you think they were, then?” he asked calmly, cutting her off as though he were a patient father dealing with a toddler’s screaming tantrum.

The monsters from her nightmares were vampires. Or Minions or whatever. They existed, like humans and dogs and cats and trees. And not just tonight. Probably forever. And she’d never had a clue, besides her dreams.

Though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, she asked him anyway. “What are you? Why could you fight those things the way you did?”

He let go of her hand then, as if suddenly uncomfortable with their closeness. “I am a vampire.”

Confusion spurred her curiosity on. “But those things were vampires. If you’re the same…species—”

“We are not the same!” His voice was too loud, even in the spacious interior of the car. He took a deep breath and continued, more gently, “A new vampire possesses all the instincts of an animal. If he suppresses those instincts—to hunt and kill—then he will retain his humanity. For a little while, anyway. Those that seek only to satisfy their hunger do not. They become Minions. The ones that attacked you are little more than animals, and they would have killed you had I not intervened.”

“How did you know they would come for me?” If it was him, if something in him had tainted her, was she…oh, God, she couldn’t be—

“You are not one of us. I swear to you, I would never…not without some…assurance…” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “They enjoy the despair. The smell, the taste. And you have a limitless well of that inside of you. Only the blind and mortal would not see that. The look in your eyes.” He touched her face, his fingers curving over her jaw. “You do not look like yourself this way.”

“How do you know what I’m supposed to look like?” She pushed his hand away. “You don’t know me.”

He closed his eyes briefly, sorrow crimping the space between his eyebrows. When he returned to the moment, the sadness in his expression was all for her. “They could not resist. I should have known better than to leave you.”

They pulled up outside of Viktor’s building. “Mr. Novotny, you’re all clear,” Anthony said over the intercom.

“We should walk quickly. Do not run. If any are near, running will attract their attention.” Viktor reached for the door.

“Wait, just wait.” She dropped her head to her hands. “I’m sorry, I can’t… Drive me home. I can’t get wrapped up in whatever weird game it is you’re playing.”

“It is not a game.” Something in his voice had changed. It was still deep and gentle, but command warped the edges. “You will not be safe on your own. Come upstairs, where I can protect you.”

She wanted to argue, but she couldn’t find the words. Even if she could have, she couldn’t have said them. Despite her fear—of him, of the creatures he was sure had followed them—she slid from the car, let him put his arm around her shoulders and guide her into the building, into the elevator, straight to his penthouse tomb. She had no choice. It was as if her body had decided, independently of her mind, to obey him.