Bond of Fire (28 page)

He grunted an acknowledgment, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He’d always avoided England on his travels as much as possible, so it was possible she could have escaped his notice.

Hélène, alive. His love, his only love, coming here…

It had been two centuries, so she should be free of her contract with the British. They could build a life together in Texas. Together, forever with his family.

Texas. Rafael’s
esfera
.

Molten pain smashed into Jean-Marie’s gut and ripped through his lungs and windpipe until he could barely breathe.

How could he have been such a fool as to have forgotten Rafael’s rules, and their bitter corollary?

Every
vampiro
Rafael had created in Texas was sworn to obey the laws of Texas, on pain of death. Rafael had always killed any
hijo
who’d dared to turn his lover into a
vampiro
, considering such behavior a threat to his—and Texas’s—security. Jean-Marie had always thought him right to do so, since those men’s taste in lovers was dubious at best.

He personally followed Rafael out of love, not because he was sworn to Texas. But he knew damn well that if he married someone who wasn’t Rafael’s
hijo
—or
hija
, impossibility though that was—his only choices were her or exile from Texas and his family.

Merde.

Hélène contemplated the bottle of amber, fizzing Corona Gold beer, crowned by a sliver of brilliant green. Spotlights glowed like lost spaceships in the condensation dripping slowly down its sides. Given the mid-July heat in Texas, even at midnight, ice-cold beer made perfect sense, and she’d always enjoyed a good lager. But a lime wedge? Why would anyone want one of those in their beer? On the other hand, this nightclub felt like a foreign place, so why shouldn’t they serve strange drinks?

Formerly a warehouse, the Capital Rose was now the most popular club in Austin for the college-age crowd interested in country, blues, and whatever else hit the marquee. On the inside, vibrant posters covered uneven limestone blocks, while iron beams crisscrossed underneath the tin ceiling. Willie Nelson smiled at Norah Jones from their posters, and Asleep at the Wheel partnered Los Lonely Boys near the bar. Old 97’s and Brave Combo prowled above the pool table. Spoon and Steve Earle, Lisa Loeb and Sara Hickman marched up the walls by the upholstered seats. Billiard balls’ irregular clack told of pool tables in a back room.

A tall man who would have looked more at home in a pro wrestling arena had been singing a mix of classic Mississippi Delta blues ballads and up-tempo Western Swing dance anthems. Now his deep baritone voice was making love to the Righteous Brothers’ hit, “Unchained Melody,” helped by the trumpeter from his band’s intriguingly Latino brass section. An enthusiastic crowd occupied both the theater-style seats near the stage and the long bar farther away, but only a few of them had trickled into the balcony near her.

After more than an hour here, she still hadn’t connected with anyone. Of course, she’d never been good at picking up strangers. She’d rather start with interesting conversation—something intellectual and complicated, like poetry or quantum physics. Her best meals back home in Oxford had always started in her library.

Oddly, she was the only woman here alone. There weren’t even any single women at the bar trying to pick up men.

There were certainly enough prime male specimens available—like the blond eyeing her from the bar, or the burly guy at the foot of the stairs. All she had to do was smile at one of them or go down and say hello to someone else. She wouldn’t even need to add a little
vampiro
charm.

But here, so close to where Jean-Marie must live? He of the blue eyes, crooked smile, and the wickedly skillful hands whose touch could melt a woman’s resolve? Who could think about anyone other than him? Not her, even though she intellectually knew she needed to keep her strength up in order to find him.

Austin was a foreign town and the Santiago Trust kept its secrets very well indeed. She’d learned in London where Compostela Ranch was but that didn’t mean its residents would tell her Jean-Marie’s location. She’d seen Don Rafael’s
vampiros
in Dallas when her private plane had landed from London. They hadn’t callenged her, although she was sure she was being followed. It was only a matter of time until they’d accost her and demand her reasons for coming, the usual procedure when crossing an
esfera
’s frontier.

She sighed and reconsidered her drink. At least she was glad to trigger its chemical reactions. She pushed the lime wedge into the bottle with one finger and studied the beer foaming up around it. With a fatalistic shrug, she closed her eyes and took a deep swig of the resulting mixture.

Not bad. In fact, it was probably smoother than the original brew would have been.

She opened her eyes, licked her lips, and started to lift her beer again. But no lights glowed around the bottle’s edge, only a single black blob in the center.

She lowered it, frowning. What the hell had changed?

A man was leaning back against the rail beside her, wearing a black leather jacket, black T-shirt, and crisply pressed jeans. His jaw was shadowed by a day’s growth of beard, providing a wonderful hint of wickedness. Vivid health shone from his crooked smile and dancing blue eyes.

“Hello, darling,” drawled Jean-Marie.

He was
here
?

Her heart stopped beating to be replaced by a million delighted butterflies rollicking throughout her veins. Her drink slipped out of her nerveless fingers and somehow landed upright on the floor.

“Mon coeur,”
she breathed and caught his face in her hands. Good God, he looked exactly like the young warrior she’d met at Versailles, not the cynical, world-weary veteran she’d fought beside in the Peninsula. She’d heard
vampiros
could revert to a different image of themselves after
El Abrazo
, if they were comfortable enough with it.

“Are you free from the British?” He yanked her against him, pulling her cruelly—wonderfully—close.

“Hell, yes.” Although it had taken her longer than she would have liked to get to Texas. She’d needed to make sure all of her team would thrive with a new
vampiro
after her departure.

“Mademoiselle Perez?” she whispered, trying to observe the formalities while she melted into his grasp, absorbing every beat of his heart through her skin and into her veins.

“She died protecting me from Napoleon’s troops,” he answered. An indefinable shadow crossed his face, and she stroked his cheek, his beard stubble rasping her fingers in shared pain for all those lost in so many wars.

He caught her fingertips with a kiss and turned away from the stairs, sweeping her with him, and opened a small door cunningly concealed in the ancient wooden planks. An instant later, they were inside and moving swiftly down a steep, narrow stairwell under a single lightbulb’s dispassionate beam.

Good Lord, did the Santiago Trust have similar access to every nightclub in Texas?

“Has there been anyone else for you?” Jean-Marie demanded harshly, pausing on a tiny landing.

“Never.” Her voice broke, but she managed to smile. Her hands crept up his leather jacket, savoring open zippers catching on her fingers during a hot summer night. Dreams would never include that detail, although they had reminded her of the steady beat of his heart under her palm. “You bastard, I tried everything—and everyone. I even had an affair with another woman, but that only lasted for a day. You ruined me for everyone else.”

His eyes flashed, kingfisher bright.

“Thank God.” He brushed his thumb over her lips, and she caressed it with her tongue, finding—and remembering—his calluses. His gaze darkened, and he lowered his head to hers.

She met his mouth more than halfway, her joy washing away years of loneliness. Their tongues swept over each other in a hot, wet dance of aching remembrance and anticipation, while their lips matched and melded. She moaned into his mouth, sharing his breath, her arms around his neck. His jacket was supple, echoing the rise and fall of his breath, while the metal stabbed her through her thin T-shirt, highlighting the agony of unfulfilled lust. His starched jeans were a slick armor to rub herself over and against like a cat, desperate to mark her territory, eager for fulfillment. His hands were hard and unendurably skillful when they slipped up the back of her T-shirt.

She nipped his lip, drawing blood, and growled at the rich, sweet taste. More, she needed—she deserved more. “Jean-Marie…”

His head came up, his eyes heavy-lidded with passion.
“Mon coeur.”
His big hand shoved her disheveled hair away from her face, and he growled in frustration. “Let’s go.”

They burst out of the nightclub into an alley still simmering with heat. Irregular shadows marked where buildings wove together, while the smaller, boxier shapes of dumpsters and money machines competed for space against their edges, mixed with occasional bicycles chained to poles. A motorcycle stood before them, its black and chrome spotlit by a single brilliant light. Road Star it called itself, and it seemed to pulse with eagerness for the open road.

He unlocked a saddlebag and tossed Hélène a mesh and leather jacket. She donned it willingly, pleased by its evidence of his chivalry. Their matching helmets completely concealed their faces, while echoing the bike’s black and silver colors. She was now anonymous to the world—and ready to be a part of him.

She swung herself onto the bike, settling easily onto the pillion seat. Ostrich leather and a backrest? Very nice, indeed, and a far cry from her usual college lad’s scooter.

Jean-Marie tightened his leather gloves, giving her an opportunity to ogle him. He’d zipped up his jacket, making it hug his body so he became a true creature of the night.

Her fingers flexed with the need to touch and claim—and keep forever.

He boarded with the same easy grace she remembered so well and brought the black beauty into life with a decisive roar. He glanced over his shoulder at her, the engine rumbling its eagerness underneath them like the look in his eyes. “Ready?”

For so much. She nodded, her knees weak.

He briefly caressed her knee, his leather glove hiding all trace of his fingers. Yet her skin burned and her pulse skittered at the look in his eyes. “Hold on, my love.”

He flipped down his visor and brought the Road Star purring down the alley. Their passage along city streets was brief but remarkable for its decorum amid groups of rowdy locals. Amiable men and women filled the sidewalks, frequently inebriated but always talking loudly about music. An occasional policeman patiently eyed the music lovers, who seemed disinclined to cause trouble.

Jean-Marie always stayed in their lane, never threading between the massed vehicles, never doing anything to attract attention. But in each block they traveled, at least one hard-eyed man lifted his head to watch them pass, before turning back to looking amiable amid the music lovers.

Hélène had seen similar men before at coronations and similar functions, ensuring the crowd stayed happy and healthy. The Santiago Trust was obviously out in full force tonight.

She filled her hands with Jean-Marie’s chest, letting his steady heartbeat roll into her palms and into her bones. The sweet rise and fall of his lungs broke into a gasp when she toyed with a zipper over his nipple, slowly dragging it up and down. She wrapped her left arm around Jean-Marie’s waist and stroked down his right leg to his knee. Hers, thank God, finally he was hers, proven by bone and muscle under her hand, by the pressure of his back against her breasts, by his hips spreading her thighs. Soon, very soon, he’d fill her again, at last.

She hissed in anticipation.

“Remember you have a live mike, Hélène,” Jean-Marie crooned in her ear. They balanced on a hillside, facing the highway on-ramp, waiting for the light to turn green. Heat rose from the bike, cooler than that in her blood.

She blushed, hoping he couldn’t see her.

He dropped his hand onto her knee, his fingers wrapping around her leg. Waves of hunger rippled through her like rockets, tightening her lungs and making her skin crackling hot and tight. She could have told where his every muscle and bone was, and what they were doing, just by listening to their echoes in her own body.

She dragged in a breath, fighting not to pull him off the motorcycle.

The light changed, and he sent the bike surging forward, jolting her heart into a faster tempo. Soon, very soon…

In this world of concrete ribbons, he paid attention only to speed, not hiding in a crowd. The engine roared its approval, pounding rhythmically into her blood, into her lungs, into her pussy.

She fondled his flat stomach and played with his belt, barely conscious of where she touched except it was him, and crooned, singing her own enjoyment. She didn’t give a damn who heard, not on this night of nights.

He growled and shifted the Road Star into a higher gear. It screamed when they took a long, curving ramp off the highway and into the thickly wooded hills. Only his skill brought the bike through the tight turns, in the lower gears necessary—despite her fingers playing with the zippers on his jacket and his jeans.

When would they reach his house?

She rocked herself back and forth on the bike, rubbing her jeans’ seam against her swollen flesh. She stropped herself against his back, fighting for the perfect position whereby the combination of his superb muscles and bones, plus his jacket, would excite her nipples into truly aching peaks—instead of their current stiff points.

Most of all, she moaned encouragement into the mike, begging him to hurry. “Dammit, Jean-Marie, please!”

“What the hell do you think I’m doing, Hélène?” He sounded as if he’d gritted his teeth when she’d palmed his cock. She smiled privately, pleased he, too, was being driven insane.

They turned into a very proper bit of road, marked by stone walls and signs on either side, and paused before a small, sturdy guardhouse. The man inside leaned out, glanced at Jean-Marie—while she tried to look demure—and rolled back the great gate. He exchanged quick salutes with Jean-Marie when they passed, his sidearm very apparent.