Desire After Dark (13 page)

“But he wasn't.”

“No.”

She made a soft sound in her throat. Maybe he was telling the truth. He had told her he had walked Sharlene and the other woman home to protect them, to warn them not to open their doors to strangers. If only they had listened! Or maybe they had. She recalled her own powerful urge to leave the safety of her house when Dimitri Falco had called to her.

“Why did you come back here tonight?” she asked.

“To tell you not to be afraid to go out after dark, that even though you do not see me, I will be watching you.”

“That was some trick you pulled tonight, disappearing like that. How did you do it?”

“I did not disappear. I merely moved faster than your eyes could see.”

“Where do you live?”

“I do not live anywhere,” he replied, and she heard the hint of self-mockery in his voice.

“Where do you stay when you aren't here?”

“I have a house in Oregon, on the coast, and another in Maine, and one in Florida.”

“Really?”

“I also have a villa in Italy and a castle in Spain.”

“How long have you been a…a vampire?”

He thought a moment, then said, “Six hundred and twelve years.”

“Six hundred and twelve years,” she repeated, her voice tinged with awe. “That means…” She did some quick mental arithmetic. “You were alive in 1394.”

He nodded.

It was mind-boggling, the things he must have seen. So many changes in six hundred years. What had it been like, to watch the world change so drastically? She looked up at him, noting that there was no sign of the injuries he had incurred earlier. His skin was smooth and clear again. He had changed clothes. Black again, she noticed, and wondered if his entire wardrobe consisted of black shirts and trousers and long black dusters.

“It must be hard to live so long and see everyone you know and love pass on.”

“I have loved no one.”

“No one in over six hundred years? Which are you, monk or eunuch?”

He laughed softly, bitterly. “Neither. I have had many women, but I have loved none of them.”

She crossed her arms over her breasts as the wind picked up, driving the rain before it. “Why not?”

“Because I did not wish to see them look at me the way you looked at me earlier. You should go and sit by the fire,” he said. “You are cold.”

Since she was shivering, there was no point in denying it. “Are you all right?”

He nodded. “Good night, Victoria.”

He turned to leave. She watched him walk down the stairs and she realized she didn't want him to go. Okay, he was a vampire, but he had also saved her life, comforted her when she was afraid, thrilled her with his kisses. Did she really want him to leave? What if she never saw him again?

It was that thought that made her call, “Wait!”

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, he glanced over his shoulder, a question in the depths of his eyes.

“Please don't go.”

“I am not going anywhere,” he said quietly. “I will be nearby if you need me.”

“Do you…Would you like to come in?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes, very much.”

He regarded her a moment before climbing the stairs. He moved as quietly as a panther, and looked like one, too, she thought, with his black hair and dark attire.

She stepped back and he crossed the threshold into the living room. She didn't know what was different about him tonight but she felt it, a faint tremor in the air around her as he entered her home.

Taking a deep breath, she closed the door behind him, turned to find him watching her.

“Are you sure you want me here?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I can smell the fear on your skin, hear the rapid beat of your heart.”

She stared up at him. “You're making that up.”

With a shake of his head, he moved toward the door.

“Antonio, please don't go. I can't help being afraid.” She sat down on the sofa, her hands clenched in her lap. “This is all so new to me.”

Nodding, he sat in the chair across from the sofa.

Silence stretched between them. She tried not to stare at him, but she couldn't help it. She had seen him wounded and bleeding only a short time ago.

“Do all vampires heal so rapidly?”

“Yes.”

“Must be nice. I mean, just think of all the money you save on doctor bills. And you'll never need a face lift. And since you don't eat, you must save a fortune on groceries, and—”

“Victoria.”

“I'm sorry, I'm just…I don't know what to say.”

“We never had trouble talking before.”

“I know, but—”

“You did not know what I was before.”

She nodded.

His gaze caressed her face, lingering on her lips. “I am sorry you had to find out like this, my sweet one. I had hoped…”

“Hoped what?”

“It does not matter now.”

“Tell me.”

“In six hundred years, I have not wanted a woman the way I want you. I had never thought to find a woman I could trust. A woman I could love, until now. I knew it was wrong of me to hold you, to kiss you, when you did not know the truth, and yet I could not help myself.”

His voice wrapped around her, as warm as a blazing fire on a cold winter night, but it was nothing compared to the heat smoldering in his eyes. Eyes that weren't the yellow of a killer stalking her small town, or red like those portrayed in horror movies, but a deep dark blue. Eyes filled with aching desire, and eons of loneliness that she could not begin to imagine.

Vicki licked her lips, remembering the power of his kisses, the way her whole body had responded to his touch. Earlier that night, the memory of kissing a vampire had seemed repulsive but now, suddenly, she wanted to be in his arms again, to feel his body against hers.

“Antonio…”

“I should go.”

“Please stay. I'm not afraid when you're here.”

“It is best if we do not see each other again.”

“What? Why?”

“Perhaps I should have said it will be easier for me if we do not see each other again.”

“I don't understand.”

“I am a vampire.” He held up his hand, silencing her. “It is the curse of my kind to feel things more strongly than mortals. Love. Hate. Pain. Passion. All are intensified. I cannot go on being near you and not touch you.” He paused, his gaze resting a moment on the pulse beating in the hollow of her throat. “Not taste you.” His eyes burned into hers, leaving no doubt as to his meaning.

“So, you're saying it's all or nothing? Your way or the highway?”

He grinned, amused by her choice of words. “Something like that.”

“I don't sleep around,” she said, “so I guess you'd better go.” But even as she said the words, she knew it was the last thing she wanted. In spite of everything, she was attracted to Antonio. No other man had ever appealed to her the way he did, made her feel the way he did.

“You misunderstand me,” he said. “I am not asking for your virginity. I am only saying that I want to get to know you better, to spend time with you, to stay here, with you, for as long as you will let me. I want your companionship…” Again, his gaze lingered on her lips. “And your affection.”

“You said for as long as I'll let you. What does that mean, exactly?”

“I think you will soon grow weary of me, and when that time comes, I will trouble you no more, though I will not leave this place until Falco is destroyed.”

“What makes you think I'll get tired of you?”

“Because I am a vampire. Because I cannot be with you during the day. Because I will be possessive and demanding of the time that we can share. And because nothing can come of whatever feelings grow out of our relationship. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“I think you're warning me not to fall in love with you.”

“Yes. Think carefully about what I have said. I will come for your answer tomorrow night.”

“There's just one thing,” she said. “What if you fall in love with me?”

“I am already in love with you, my sweet one,” he replied, and for the second time that night, he disappeared from her sight.

Bobbie Sue sat on the sofa, a blanket draped around her shoulders, a cup of hot tea cradled between her hands. “So, it's true, all of it? You're a vampire hunter and Antonio is a vampire?”

Duncan nodded.

“And Sharlene and those other women, they've all been killed by a vampire?”

“Yeah.”

“It's just one vampire doing the killing, right? I mean, Antonio isn't…”

“Well, I can't be sure of that,” Duncan admitted. And at the same time, he admitted something he had known but refused to acknowledge for years. Between the two of them, Ramsey had been the true hunter. Duncan had been the slayer. Not for the first time, he wondered if it was time to hang up his vampire kit and find another line of work. Maybe something here, in Pear Blossom Creek. Maybe it was time to settle down and get married, maybe to a pretty girl like Bobbie Sue, and raise a couple of kids.

“Are you going to…you know?”

“I'm sure as hell gonna try.”

“Both of them?”

“That's the only way to be sure I've got the killer,” Duncan said, and then he laughed softly. All vampires were killers. No matter how civilized and friendly they might seem, killing was in their nature. It was a fact he would be wise to remember. Now, in addition to looking for Falco's resting place, he would have to search for Battista's as well. Dammit, he wished Ramsey were siding him on this one.

“But what about Vicki? I think she really likes Antonio.”

He grunted softly. “Believe me, the world will be better off without him, and so will she.”

Bobbie Sue didn't argue, but she looked unconvinced.

Duncan sat down on the sofa and put his arm around her. “You'll just have to trust me on this.”

Vicki didn't get any sleep that night. She sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace thinking about Antonio, reliving every moment she had spent with him as she tried to decide what her answer would be when she saw him again. Had he been an ordinary man, the decision would have been easy, she thought, or would it? Maybe, subconsciously, part of his attraction was the fact that he wasn't an ordinary man.

One thing was certain, if he weren't a vampire, she would most likely be dead by now, and so would he. Only the fact that he was a vampire had enabled him to fight off Falco's attack. It was a sobering, disturbing thought.

So, what was she going to do? She thought of all the men she had known and dated. They had all been nice guys, but none of them had held her interest for long. There had been no excitement, no sparks, nothing beyond friendship. Their caresses hadn't excited her or made her long for more than kisses. She had never been tempted to surrender her virtue for a night of wild passion, at least not until Antonio entered her life. Since the night she had first seen him, she had thought of little else.

It wasn't fair. She had finally found a man who fascinated her, and he wasn't a man at all. As attracted to him as she was, there seemed little point in pursuing their relationship. He had made it quite clear that there couldn't be anything serious between them, and he was right. No matter how she felt about him, they were as different as day and night. She laughed bitterly. Day and night, indeed.

He had said he loved her.

And she was horribly afraid that she was dangerously close to falling in love with him.

With a sigh, she hugged one of the sofa pillows to her chest. It was obvious that no matter what decision she made, sooner or later she was going to end up with a broken heart.

She fell asleep on the sofa, her dreams disjointed and confusing. Sometimes Antonio was chasing her and sometimes she was chasing him and then, without warning, it would be Falco chasing her, his breath hot on the back of her neck. She woke feeling hungry and out of sorts with barely enough time to shower and dress and make it to work on time.

“Hey, Red, how are you feelin'?” Gus asked.

“Fine, thanks.”

“I guess it was just a twenty-four-hour thing,” Gus remarked.

She frowned and then remembered that she had called in sick the night before. “I guess so. How's the crowd tonight?”

“Same as always.”

With a smile, she went out into the diner, wondering if Antonio would come in.

The first hour passed quickly, with the dinner crowd keeping her and Bobbie Sue busy. Vicki had the feeling Bobbie Sue wanted to talk to her, but there was no time until the dinner crowd dispersed.

As soon as the diner cleared, Bobbie Sue took her aside. “You don't mind my dating Tom, do you?”

“Mind? Of course not. Why should I mind?”

“Well, you went out with him first and I…Well, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't stepping on your toes.”

“Don't worry about it. So tell me, are you going out with him again?”

“I want to, but I don't know. I mean, what he does for a living kind of creeps me out.” Bobbie Sue lowered her voice. “Can you believe all this? Vampires in the twenty-first century? I still can't believe it.”

“I know what you mean. Can you imagine what would happen if the word got out? People would either lock us up in the loony bin, or they'd panic and run amok.”

Vicki glanced up, her pulse quickening in anticipation as the bell over the door rang, but it was just Rhonda McGee. She looked around and took a seat at one of Vicki's tables.

“So, what do you think I should do?” Bobbie Sue asked. “About Tom?”

“What does your heart tell you?”

“To see him again,” Bobbie Sue said, smiling. “Thanks.”

With a nod, Vicki went to take Rhonda's order. Not surprisingly, Rhonda brought up the recent murders and the fact that she and Vicki were both redheads.

“It's unsettling,” Rhonda said. “I never used to be afraid to go out at night, you know? But now…” She shrugged. “I'm thinking of asking if I can work the day shift for a while.”

“I don't blame you,” Vicki said. “I've been thinking about that, too. You haven't seen a man with yellow eyes, have you?”

“Yellow eyes? No, I'm sure I'd remember that.”

“Well, if you see him, run like the devil himself was after you.”

“Vicki, you're scaring me.”

“Good, because he's the killer.”

Rhonda's eyes widened. “How do you know? Have you seen him? Oh my gosh, you have! When? Where?”

“At the Blue Horse the other night.”

“Thanks for the warning. I was going over there later.”

“Well, don't. And don't invite any strange men into your house.”

“You're the second one to tell me that.”

“Oh?”

Rhonda leaned forward, her voice low and intimate. “A really good-looking guy walked me home from the hospital one night and warned me about that. I don't know who he was, but I was really tempted to ask him in, stranger or not…Oh, there he is now.”

Feeling as though a million butterflies had just taken flight in her stomach, Vicki glanced over her shoulder. And there he was, dressed all in black, as usual, his hair damp from the rain that had started to fall a short while ago.

His gaze found hers. The electricity that arced between them could have lit up the whole state.

As though drawn by an invisible string, Vicki followed him to the booth in the back.

“Hi,” she said, hoping he wouldn't notice how breathless she sounded.

“Good evening, Victoria.”

She laughed softly. “Good evening.”

“You find that amusing?”

“No. Well, yes. Haven't you ever seen Dracula?”

He lifted one brow. “Excuse me?”

“You know, the movie,
Dracula
. He also says ‘good evening.'”

“Ah. I saw you talking to Miss McGee. Is she a friend of yours?”

“In a town this small, everyone is either your friend or a relative. She said you warned her not to open her door for strangers.”

He nodded.

“She also said she was tempted to ask
you
in.”

Man or vampire, they all had egos. It was blatantly obvious that he was flattered.

“Do not let me keep you from your work,” he said.

“All right.” She cocked her head to one side. “So is it true that you never eat and that you never drink anything but…you know?”

He nodded, his gaze intent upon her face as he waited for her reaction.

She took a deep breath. “Well, I guess nothing on the menu will tempt you, then.”

“Only you.”

The look in his eyes, the husky longing in his voice, made her knees go weak. Reluctantly, she went to wait on her other customers.

He sat in the booth the rest of the evening, one arm across the back, toying with a cup of coffee that he never drank.

Gus grumbled a bit about that until Vicki told him that Antonio was there to see her safely home.

When Bobbie Sue heard that, she took Vicki aside and asked her if she had lost her mind.

“He's a vampire,” Bobbie Sue said, glancing around to make sure no one overheard her. “A vampire, Vicki. And Tom, well, he hunts them, you know, and…”

“And what?”

“He's going to kill him or destroy him or whatever it is he does.”

“What? Why? Antonio hasn't done anything to anyone.”

“Vicki, read my lips. He's a vampire. They kill people and drink their blood.”

“No.” Vicki looked over at the booth where Antonio was sitting. In spite of what she had just said, she couldn't dismiss the truth of Bobbie Sue's words. Hadn't Antonio himself told her just that night that he drank blood? Where else was he going to get it, if not from…from people he killed? So he wasn't responsible for killing Sharlene and the others. That didn't mean he hadn't killed others, only that he hadn't been caught.

It was all she could think about during the remainder of her shift. She served platters of steak and shrimp and bowls of soup and all she could think about was Antonio and how many people he must have killed to survive as long as he had.

He was waiting for her outside when the diner closed. Without a word, he walked her to her car, waited while she unlocked the door and got behind the wheel.

“Get in,” she said. “We need to talk.”

The ride home seemed longer than usual. His presence in the car was almost overwhelming. Never had she been so aware of how very male he was. He exuded strength and power and a sense of invincibility that was both reassuring and frightening.

When she pulled into the driveway, he got out of the car first. As he had before, he scanned the yard and the trees beyond before he opened the door for her.

Inside the house, she closed and locked the front door, then went into the living room and sat down. He followed her, still silent. He didn't sit down, simply stood there, waiting, as if he knew what was coming.

“You drink blood,” she said. “Where do you get it?”

He grunted softly. “What you want to know is how many people I have killed.”

“Yes.”

Antonio paced the length of the room, then came to stand in front of her once again. “I am not like Dimitri Falco. I do not kill for pleasure. I have killed in the past. I do not deny it. I have killed to preserve my existence. I have killed to defend myself, but never without cause.”

“But you have to kill to live, don't you? How often? Every night? Once a week?” Even if he only needed sustenance once a year, he would have killed over six hundred people.

“There is no need for me to take life, Victoria. I can take what I need without killing. I have been a vampire for a very long time. My need for blood grows less with each passing year, though my desire for it has not changed.”

“Tom Duncan intends to kill you.”

Battista lifted one brow. “Indeed?”

Vicki nodded. “Bobbie Sue told me.”

He made a sound deep in his throat. It sounded almost like a growl.

“Can he? Kill you?”

“I am already dead, but he can destroy me, though he will have to find me first.”

She didn't find that very comforting. Of course, Duncan hadn't been able to locate Falco thus far, though she prayed that would soon change. Hopefully, Duncan would never find Antonio's resting place, wherever that might be.

“Did you think about what I said last night?” Battista asked.

“Are you kidding? I haven't been able to think of anything else.”

“What have you decided?”

“I want you in my life.” She hadn't known what her answer was going to be until that moment. Now, hearing the words, they felt right. “So, I guess we're going steady.” Using such an outdated term made her cheeks grow hot.

“Going steady.” He repeated the words, his tone faintly amused, as he sat down beside her. “You are sure? You have no doubts?”

“Oh, I have a lot of doubts, but I'm not listening to them.”

He smiled at her.

Was he pleased with her answer, she wondered, or just amused?

He leaned toward her and she knew he was going to kiss her. She put her hand against his chest, staying him.

“There's just one more thing. You're not planning to drink my blood, are you?”

He glanced briefly at her throat. “Only if you want me to.”

“No worries, then,” she said, confident that even if she lived to be a hundred, she would never ask him to do anything so inherently repugnant.