In Bed With A Stranger (29 page)

“D
r. Ericson”

Lana adjusted the angle on the microscope. Yes. Right there. Perfect. “Amazing.”

“Lana.”

She reached out blindly for the stylus to her handheld.
Got it.
She stared taking notes on the screen without looking away from the microscope.

“Dr. Ericson!!!”

Lana jumped, bumping her cheekbone on the microscope’s eyepiece before falling backward, hitting a wall that hadn’t been there when she’d come into work that morning.

Strong hands set her firmly on her feet as she realized the wall was warm and made of flesh and muscle. Lots and lots of muscle.

Stumbling back a step, she looked up and then up some more. The dark-haired hottie in front of her was as tall as her colleague, Beau Ruston. Or close to it anyway. She fumbled with her glasses, sliding them on her nose. They didn’t help. Reading glasses for the computer, they only served to make her feel more disoriented.

She squinted, then remembered and pulled the glasses off again, letting them dangle by their chain around her neck. “Um, hello? Did I know you were visiting my lab?”

She was fairly certain she hadn’t. She forgot appointments sometimes. Okay, often, but she always remembered eventually. And this man hadn’t made an appointment with her. She was sure of it. He didn’t look like a scientist either.

Not that all scientists were as unremarkable as she was in the looks department, but this man was another species entirely.

He looked dangerous and sexy. Enough so that he would definitely replace chemical formulas in her dreams at night. His black hair was a little too long and looked like he’d run his fingers through it, not a comb. That was just so bad boy. She had a secret weakness for bad boys.

Even bigger than the secret weakness she’d harbored for Beau Ruston before he’d met Elle.

She had posters of James Dean and Matt Dillon on the wall of her bedroom and had seen
Rebel Without a Cause
a whopping thirty-six times.

Unlike James Dean, this yummy bad boy even had pierced ears. Only instead of sedate studs or small hoops, he had tiny black plugs. Only a bit bigger than a pair of studs, the plugs were recessed in his lobes. The had the Chinese Kanji for strength etched on them in silver. Or pewter maybe. It wasn’t shiny.

The earrings were hot. Just like him.

He looked like the kind of man who had a tattoo. Nothing colorful. Something black and meaningful. She wanted to see it. Too bad she couldn’t just ask.

Interpersonal interaction had so many taboos. It wasn’t like science where you dug for answers without apology.

“Lana?”

The stranger had a strong jaw too, squared and accented by a close-cropped beard that went under, not across his chin. No mustache. His lips were set in a straight line, but they still looked like they’d be heaven to kiss.

Not that she’d kissed a lot of lips, but she was twenty-nine. Even a geeky scientist didn’t make it to the shy side of thirty without a few kisses along the way. And other stuff. Not that the other stuff was all that spectacular. She’d always wondered if that was her fault or the men she’d chosen to partner.

It didn’t take a shrink to identify the fact that Lana had trust issues. With her background, who wouldn’t?

Still, people had been know to betray family, love and country for sex. She wouldn’t cross a busy street to get some. Or maybe she would, if this stranger was waiting on the other side.

The fact that she could measure the time since she’d last had sex in years rather than months, weeks or
days
—which would be a true miracle—wasn’t something she enjoyed dwelling on. She blamed it on her work.

However, every feminine instinct that was usually sublimated by her passion for her job was on red alert now.

The temperature’s rising in Karen Kelley’s HOW TO SEDUCE A TEXAN, out this month from Brava…

S
he hit another pothole.

Dammit! They came out of nowhere. As soon as she got home, she’d need to take her car in for realignment. And she’d send Marge the bill.

She topped a rise and slammed on the brakes, the car fishtailed, spewing a thick cloud of dust behind her. Her heart felt as if it had taken residence in her throat. She skidded to a stop, barely missing the cow that languidly stood in the middle of the road looking unconcerned that it had almost been splattered across her windshield.

Nikki’s heart pounded inside her chest and her hands shook. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, the black and white cow looked at her with total unconcern. This was so not how she wanted to start her vacation slash investigative reporting.

“I almost wrecked because of you.” She glared at the cow. Her cold-eyed, steely glare that she’d perfected over the years. If it had been a person rather than a dumb animal, it would’ve been frozen to the spot.

The cow opened its mouth and bellowed a low, meandering, I-was-here-first moo.

She didn’t think the cow cared one little bit that it had almost become hamburger. Damned country. She’d take city life and dirty politicians any day.

“Move!” She clapped her hands.

The cow didn’t get in any hurry as it lumbered to the side of the narrow road and lowered its head. The four-legged beast chomped down on a bunch of grass, then slowly began to chew.

She shifted into park, then waved her arms. “Shoo!”

Nothing.

She honked the horn.

Nothing.

The hot sun beat down on her. A bead of sweat slid uncomfortably between her breasts. She judged the narrow road, wondering if she could maneuver around the cow without going into the ditch.

Before she decided to attempt it, another sound drew her attention. She glanced down the dirt road, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun as a cloud of dust came toward her. The cloud of dust became a man on a horse.

Correction. A cowboy on a horse.

Hi-ho, Silver, the Lone Ranger,
she thought sarcastically.

But the closer he got, the more her sarcasm faded. The Lone Ranger had nothing on this cowboy. Broad shoulders, black hat pulled low on his forehead…

Black hat. Bad guys wore black hats. Right? Things were looking up.

At least until he brought the horse to a grinding halt and dust swirled around her—again. She coughed and waved her hands in front of her face.

“Bessie, how the hell do you keep getting out?” he asked.

His slow, Southern drawl drizzled over her like warmed honey, and she knew from experience warmed honey drizzling over her naked body could be very good. Sticky, but oh so sexy.

Did he look as good as he sounded?

She shaded her eyes again at the same time he pushed his hat higher on his forehead with one finger. Cal Braxton’s tanned face stared down at her. His cool, deep-green eyes only made her body grow warmer with each passing second.

So this was the infamous playboy star football player. The man who had a pretty woman on his arm almost every night of the week—at least until Cynthia Cole had come into his life.

“I almost hit your cow,” she told him as she slipped off one of her high heels and rubbed the insole with her other foot. It didn’t stop the tingle of pleasure that was running up and down her legs. He could park his boots by her bed any day.

“Sorry about that. Bessie thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.”

He pulled a rolled-up rope off the saddle horn and swatted the end of it against Bessie’s rump. The cow gave him a disgruntled look before ambling down the road.

His gaze returned to her…roaming over her…seducing her. “Are you lost?”

“On vacation.”

He easily controlled the prancing horse beneath him. “Staying nearby?”

“At the Crystal Creek Dude Ranch.”

His grin was slow. So, he did have all his teeth, and they were pearly white. She ran her tongue over her dry lips.

“My brother owns it,” he said. “I’m helping him out. It looks like we might be seeing a lot of each other. Name’s Cal—Cal Braxton.”

His thumb idly stroked the rope. For a moment, she was mesmerized as she watched the hypnotic movement.

“You know, you shouldn’t drive with the top down in this heat,” he said.

She almost laughed. It wasn’t the heat from the sun that had momentarily stolen her wits. Cal was good. Ah, yes, he knew all the moves that made a woman yearn for him to caress her naked skin. And he made those moves very well.

No hero comes close to MIDNIGHT’S MASTER, the latest from Cynthia Eden, out next month from Brava…

“T
hrow her out, Niol. You want the vamps to keep comin’, you
throw that bitch out.”

The tapping stopped, and, because the vampire had raised his shrill-ass voice again, the nearby paranormals—because, generally, the folks who came in his bar were far, far from normal—stilled.

Niol shook his head slowly. “I think you’re forgetting a few things,
vamp
.” He gathered the black swell of power that pulsed just beneath his skin. Felt the surge of dark magic and—

The vamp flew across the bar, slamming into the stage with a scream. The lead guitarist swore, then jumped back, cradling his guitar with both hands like the precious baby he thought it was.

The sudden silence was deafening.

Niol motioned toward the bar. “Get me another drink, Marc.” He glanced at the slowly rising vampire. “Did I tell you to get up?” It barely took any effort to slam the bastard into the stage wall this time. Just a stray thought, really.

Ah, but power was a wonderful thing.

Sometimes, it was damn good to be a demon. And even better to be a level ten, and the baddest asshole in the room.

He stalked forward. Enjoyed for a moment the way the crowd jumped away from him.

The vampire began to shake.
Perfect.

Niol stopped a foot before the fallen Andre. “First,” he growled, “don’t ever,
ever
fucking tell me what to do in
my
bar again.”

A fast nod.

“Second…” His hands clenched into fists as he fought to rein in the magic blasting through him. The power…oh, but it was tempting. And so easy to use.

Too easy.

One more thought, just one, focused and hard, and he could have the vamp dead at his feet.

“Use too much, you’ll lose yourself.”
An old warning. One that had come too late for him. He’d been twenty-five before he met another demon who even came close to him in power and that guy’s warning—well it had been long overdue.

Niol knew he’d been one of the Lost for years.

The first time he’d killed, he’d been Lost.

“Second,” he repeated, his voice cold, clear, and cutting like a knife in the quiet. “If you think I give a damn about the vampires coming to
my
place…” His mouth hitched into a half-grin, but Niol knew no amusement would show in the darkness of his eyes. “Then you’re dead wrong, vampire.”

“S-sorry, Niol, I—”

He laughed. Then turned his back on the cringing vampire. “Thomas.” The guard he always kept close. “Throw that vamp’s ass out.”

When Thomas stepped forward, the squeal of a guitar ripped through the bar. And the dancing and the drinking and the mating games of the
Other
began with a fierce rumble of sound.

His eyes searched for his prey and he found Holly watching him. All eyes and red hair and lips that begged for his mouth. He strode toward her, conscious of covert eyes still on them. He could show no weakness. Never could.

I’m not weak.

He was the strongest demon in Atlanta. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to give the paranormals any cause to start doubting his power.

His kind turned on the weak.

When he stopped before her, the scent of lavender flooded his nostrils.

She looked up at him. The human was small, to him anyway, barely reaching his shoulders so that he towered over her.

She was the weak one.
All of her kind were.

Humans. So easy to wound. To kill.

He lifted his hand. Stroked her cheek. Damn but she was soft. Leaning close, Niol told her, “Sweetheart, I warned you before about coming to my Paradise.”

There was no doubt others overheard his words. With so many shifters skulking around the joint, a
whisper
would have been overheard. Shifters and their annoyingly superior senses.

“Wh-what do you mean?” The question came, husky and soft. Ah, but he liked her voice. And he could all too easily imagine that voice, whispering to him as they lay amid a tangle of sheets.

Or maybe screaming in his ear as she came.

He cupped her chin in his hand. A nice chin. Softly rounded. And those lips…the bottom was fuller than the top. Just a bit. So red. Her mouth was slightly parted, open.

Waiting.

She stepped back, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you
think
you’re doing, Niol—”

He stared down at her. “Yes, you do.” He caught her arms, wrapping his fingers around her and jerking Holly against him. “I told you, the last time you came into
my
bar…”

Her eyes widened. “Niol…”

Oh, yeah, he liked the way she said his name. She breathed it, tasted it.

His lips lowered toward hers. “If you want to walk in Paradise, baby, then you’re gonna have to play with the devil.”

“No, I—”

He kissed her. Hard. Deep. Niol drove his tongue right past those plump lips and took her mouth the way the beast inside of him demanded.