Out of the Night (Harlequin Nocturne) (18 page)

“I just came to say goodbye,” he said.

When she looked up at him, she realized what he was doing—trying to make the decision for her so she didn’t have to. This time it didn’t make her angry. It made her sad, desperate. When he tried to step away, she reached out and took his hand. “Don’t go.”

He turned slowly and looked at her with an expression that told her he wanted this every bit as much as she did. But there was pain there, too.

“Olivia. You don’t want to lose Mindy. Good friends are more valuable now than ever. And she’s right about me. It’s too dangerous for us to be together, for so many reasons I can’t count them all.”

She took a step closer to him. “I love Mindy dearly, but I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“You’re killing me. How much willpower do you think I have?”

“I want this. You want this. We can fight it all we want, list all the reasons it couldn’t possibly work, but it’s not going away.”

His last ounce of resistance evidently fled, because he closed the distance between them.

Olivia felt as if she were the one going up in flames when Campbell wrapped his strong arms around her and kissed her. A desire more potent than anything she’d ever felt consumed her, made her body hum in places that insisted on finding satisfaction. Somewhere amid all the kissing and caressing, she managed to utter a single word.

“Yes.”

He wasted no time in scooping her up into his arms and making short work of the space between the balcony and her bedroom. It seemed only a solitary breath escaped her from the time he stepped across her home’s threshold to when he placed her gently on her bed. His eyes glowed with a brilliant blue hue that, for the first time, she thought of as beautiful and not frightening.

“I must have lost my mind along with a few layers of skin,” he said.

She sat up and captured his mouth, needing to taste him again. His hands slid under her T-shirt and unclasped her bra. And then his hands found their way unerringly to her breasts. Though he possessed incredible strength, he applied only enough pressure to make her gasp in yearning. Needing to feel him, she tugged off his long-sleeved tee and let her hands move wherever they wanted across his sculpted chest, his strong arms, his muscled back.

He was perfect.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, his words reverent.

“So are you.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Don’t ever say that in front of the guys, or I will never hear the end of it.”

Feeling more daring and needy than she ever had, she ran her hand down his chest to the top of his cargo pants. “I don’t plan on talking to anyone for many hours.”

With a growl that was supercharged with sexual promise, he pressed her back against the bed and kissed her nearly into oblivion. They paused for moments in between kisses to remove and toss clothing. And when he stretched his long body along hers, skin to skin, she nearly cried with need.

“I want you,” she whispered against his wet lips.

“You’re sure? Because once we do this, I can tell you I’m never going to want to let you go.”

She knew he meant it as a warning, but she accepted it as a promise. She placed her mouth next to his ear. “Good,” she whispered.

His mouth latched on to her breast, and for a moment the old fear surged into her despite her belief in him. What if his fangs descended? What if he couldn’t help himself?

Campbell looked up at her. “I won’t hurt you. I swear it.” There was such conviction in his words that she believed him totally.

And in the next second she lost the ability to think beyond registering pure sensation. Campbell kissed her all over, making her body tingle in the most delicious way. He drove her to a frenzy just with his mouth and hands.

“I can’t wait anymore,” she said.

When he entered her in one fluid motion, she cried out, not caring if the neighbors heard her.

He slid out, then back in again, exquisite pleasure and torture all at once. She grabbed his hips and pressed down as she surged her own upward. He growled and pulled her hard against his body, then started pumping. Her breath rasped out in ragged gasps, faster and faster, mimicking his strokes within her. She matched his rhythm, getting closer and closer to her pinnacle.

“Faster,” she said, and he complied.

They were beasts of frenetic motion, and with another powerful thrust she came apart. He continued to ride her—and that was what it was, a crazy, beautiful, hammering ride—until he reached his own release and cried out her name.

They collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs, their lungs heaving. Olivia snuggled close to him and marveled at the rise and fall of his chest.

“You’re breathing,” she said.

“Yeah. It’s not essential, but our bodies still remember and react. Running, climbing stairs, making love to a gorgeous woman.” He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.

He held her so carefully that her heart opened up like a blooming flower. As improbable as it might seem, even to her, she loved him. She lifted herself so she could look in his eyes. “Can vampires love?”

He smiled. “I think I just answered that question.”

She twirled her finger along his chest. “Not make love. Love.”

His expression changed, growing more serious. “Evidently so.”

He kissed her with such feeling that her body started to hum again. This time they made love so torturously slow that she thought she might start begging for release before he got around to giving it to her.

In the lazy aftermath of their lovemaking, Campbell wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close to his side. “I’m sorry I have no warmth to offer you.”

“It’s okay. I think I’m warm enough for both of us at the moment.”

He chuckled and she liked the sound of him happy. She knew he had a strong sense of purpose, but she had no idea if this immortal life he was living held happiness. It seemed unreal that she, an everyday diner owner, could possibly be the person who could bring him that. Almost more unbelievable than the fact that the man bringing her happiness was a vampire.

She trailed her fingers over his chest, examining the muscles there.

“Be careful. You might get more than you bargain for,” he teased.

She lifted her head to look at him. “How do you know what I’m bargaining for?”

He lifted an eyebrow.

“Is that another of your vampire powers, to be able to make love all night long?”

A wicked grin stretched his lips. “Oh, no. That’s all me, one hundred percent Campbell Raines the man.”

She smiled back. “Mighty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“With good reason.”

She laughed as he rolled her onto her back and entered her again. Now she was definitely going to hire some help in the diner because she didn’t know if she was ever going to leave this bed again.

Chapter 17

W
hen Olivia fell
asleep, Campbell lay next to her for a long time watching the slow rise and fall of her breath, the peaceful look on her face. When the vampire side of him tried to think about her blood, he forced himself out of her bed. He should leave, go to work, but he couldn’t make himself walk out the door. He stood and watched her sleep for several moments, marveling that she could rest so peacefully with a vampire next to her. That she had wanted to make love to him, to have him hold her.

She’d made him feel alive again.

God, he wanted that memory to go away. Hadn’t he had to relive that horrible night enough?

But he could so easily take Olivia’s life before he even thought about it. He’d almost done it before. The image of Bridget Jameson lying bleeding in his arms taunted him, whispering that it was only a matter of time before it was Olivia hanging from his grasp like a rag doll robbed of its stuffing.

He slipped his pants on and wandered into the living room. A check of the exterior out both her front window and the sliding glass door revealed quiet, vampire-free streets. When he turned away from the balcony door and headed back toward her small living area, he spotted a framed photo on a shelf full of books. He picked it up and looked at a beaming Olivia with her arms around a sandy-haired guy. They stood on a pier that jutted into the ocean, the sun bright overhead.

He’d never be able to give her that.

“That’s Jeremy,” she said as she crossed the room from her bedroom doorway.

“I’d assumed. You look happy.”

“We were. We’d gone to Florida on vacation, just a couple of months before the virus hit.”

He lifted the picture and looked at her. “I can’t give you this.”

“No, but you have other things to give.”

“What? I deal with death and crime and the dark underbelly of vampire society. There are no sunsets or sunrises or building sandcastles on the beach. I can’t even take you outside at night for fear I’d have to fight off other vampires. And I can’t go outside with you in the daylight. What could I possibly give you?” With each word, he felt as if he were ripping himself more raw inside.

“You.” She took the photo from him and placed it back in its spot on the shelf. “I’m going to always love Jeremy. He was my first true love. But even though it felt like it at the time, I didn’t die with him. I still have a life to live, however long it might be. And I want you in it.”

He shook his head. “I still don’t understand why.”

“Because you’re a good man, Campbell Raines. You are honorable, kind, self-sacrificing, caring.”

She wouldn’t think so highly of him if she knew everything. He should tell her, push her away for good, but he couldn’t. She moved closer.

“Not to mention sexy as hell,” she said.

That last part made him smile despite dark thoughts of the past and tug her close. “Sexy, eh?”

“Mouthwateringly so.”

He examined every inch of her face and slowly shook his head. Would he ever get enough of this woman? “I could say the same about you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“In fact, I think you’ve slept enough.” He lowered his mouth and captured hers in a hungry kiss. When she answered in kind, he’d swear his body heated from one end to the other.

She unzipped his pants. “You have on entirely too many clothes.”

He stood mesmerized as she unbuttoned them and let them drop off his hips. He slid his hands under the long T-shirt she’d put on and lifted it over her head, leaving them both naked. They didn’t make it to the bed this time. He lifted her and sat her bottom on the back of the couch. When she wrapped her legs around him and slid her tongue over his left nipple, he made a sound of painful pleasure and buried himself in her to the hilt.

“I can’t go slow.”

This time she licked his ear. “I don’t want to go slow. In fact, I want to see just how fast you can go.”

And so he showed her, holding her close and pumping so hard and fast that she gasped and let her head fall back, giving him glorious access to her breast. He sucked and pumped until he thought they might both fly apart, and then he did it some more. He felt her interior muscles tighten around him, and that sent him over the edge. She cried out with her release, and the sound of her pleasure caused his to swell as he slid in and out even faster until he too finally found release.

His legs unsteady, he rolled her backward onto the couch and draped his leg over her. There was no doubt about it anymore. Wise or not, he loved this woman, loved her with all his heart.

* * *

Olivia woke up in her bed, though she had no memory of how she got there. Before she opened her eyes, she let herself drift on the memories that came back with a heated clarity. A bird chirped somewhere nearby, heralding the dawn. She smiled in her half sleep at the beautiful sound.

And then she sat up so fast her head swam.

She ran her hand down the other side of the bed, now empty. The rest of her bedroom proved just as lacking in his presence. The fact that she was naked told her that she hadn’t just dreamed last night.

“Campbell?”

No answer.

She kicked off the covers and checked the bathroom, then the rest of her small apartment. After wrapping herself in a robe, she checked out the windows but he wasn’t anywhere visible outside either. When she turned away from the window, that was when she noticed the note propped against the vase of roses.

“You’re beautiful when you’re sleeping. I wish I could see you with the sunlight on your face.”

She covered the giddy smile that formed on her lips. No matter what they’d shared the night before, she’d never expected such lovely words from a guy like him, a man’s man. She giggled at the idea that these were words he’d also never want the other guys on his team to hear.

That was okay. She wanted them all to herself.

It was hard to think about working, but she needed to get ready before Mindy arrived. She wondered how long she’d be able to keep how she’d spent her night from her best friend.

It ended up not being an issue.

When she got downstairs and started mixing the ingredients for cherry pastries, the phone rang. Her heart started beating faster in anticipation of hearing Campbell’s voice. “Hello,” she said as she put the phone to her ear.

“Liv, I need to take the day off, maybe two,” Mindy said without preamble.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just exhausted.”

Olivia knew it was more. Mindy was reliving the horrible deaths of her mother and sister, and it was Olivia’s fault. She closed her eyes, searching for the right thing to say. Maybe it was best not to bring it up, to let Mindy deal with it in her own way.

“You deserve some time off. Get some rest. Do something fun.”

“Hey, maybe I’ll get that massage,” Mindy said a bit halfheartedly.

“Tease.”

Mindy laughed a little, but it was a shadow of her normal laughter. “You going to be okay running things on your own?”

“Yeah. Not expecting a big run on the diner.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

When Mindy hung up, Olivia felt the void where her friend should be. It grew bigger with each moment that passed in condemning silence.

* * *

Campbell stood in
front of the Imperium the next night. He’d wanted so much to go back to Olivia’s, to hold her again, but he’d been summoned to the Imperium’s North American headquarters a mere two streets away from the United Nations. At least this time the reason for the meeting was of his own making.

When he climbed the stone steps to the front door, he remembered when this building had used the cover of the private residence of a reclusive billionaire. He remembered driving by when he’d been with the NYPD and wondering about the identity of its owner. He and his partner had gone back and forth guessing how the recluse had made his billions.

He’d had no idea that the owners had amassed their fortune by living for centuries.

When he stepped inside, the unease that he always felt here made a reappearance. He didn’t feel threatened, more like out of place, as he had felt at really fancy restaurants when he’d been alive. He’d been more of a takeout-pizza kind of guy.

“Officer Raines, your timing is perfect,” said the redheaded vampire at the front desk. “Representative Drogan just finished a phone call and can see you now.” The woman stood and led him down a hallway beside the stairs that led to the upper levels of the six-story building. He didn’t know what was on all the floors or in all the rooms, only that the courtroom was on the top floor.

As he entered the office the woman indicated, Charles Drogan stood and rounded his desk with a formal-looking stride. Though he’d lived through centuries, he sometimes still showed the mannerisms of King Henry VIII’s court, which was where he’d been turned.

“Ah, Raines. Good to see you.”

Campbell nodded in acknowledgment. “Representative Drogan.”

“What can I do for you today?”

“I’ve been trying without success to make contact with the NYPD on a matter. I’d like your help in making them listen. Perhaps if a request came from the Imperium—”

“What is this matter?”

Campbell hid his annoyance at being interrupted. People doing that had always irked him, as if they were indicating what they had to say was more important than what he’d been in the middle of saying.

“Protection for a woman.”

“A human woman?”

“Yes. She’s a target of whoever is behind these abductions.”

“All humans could be their targets.”

“Yes, but she’s escaped two attempted abductions already.”

“Sounds to me like she can take care of herself,” Drogan said.

Campbell couldn’t help his hands fisting at his sides. And by the quick glance he saw, it hadn’t gone unnoticed by Drogan. “My team intervened. She wouldn’t stand a chance against vampires on her own, not even the humans they have working for them.”

“Your team happened to be nearby on both occasions?”

If Olivia’s life weren’t so important to him, he’d tell this guy what a jerk he was, Imperium be damned.

“The first time, we detected human distress while we were on patrol. The second, we were alerted by a tip from an informant.”

Drogan returned to the far side of his desk and sat in his large leather chair. “Protection for a single human hardly seems a concern for the Imperium.”

“I thought all humans were important. Isn’t that why we changed the laws about tapping veins, why we established the blood banks?”

The tick in Drogan’s jaw told Campbell he’d probably just crossed a line and shouldn’t expect any help from the Imperium. He forced himself to calm down and remember that Olivia’s safety was the important thing here.

“All I’m saying is that if the Imperium and the NYPD were to work together, perhaps it would be beneficial for everyone. There are others in her neighborhood at risk, too.”

“Noted,” Drogan said, sounding as if he’d already begun the process of filing Campbell’s idea in the “no action” part of his brain’s file system. “Though it’s my opinion that the less we interact, the better.”

Before Campbell could say anything else, Drogan picked up his phone. “If you’ll excuse me, I have an important call to make.”

Campbell could rant and rave all he wanted, but once an Imperium representative made up his mind, there was no changing it. Anger made his bunched muscles throb as he nodded and turned to go. By the time he hit the hallway, he wanted to punch something, and hard. He was taking such long angry strides that he nearly ran over someone as she came out of the door of the next office.

“I’m sorry,” he said a moment before he recognized her. “Baroness. I didn’t realize you were in town.”

She sighed. “It seems I am always in a town not my own.”

“You do have a demanding job.” Catherine Flanders, the Baroness of Edgemont, called London home, but her position as a liaison between the Imperium’s home and all the offices around the world kept her traveling more often than not. She was what you might call Internal Affairs for the Imperium’s leaders in Bucharest.

“Yes, and it only seems to get more so with each passing year.”

“What brings you to New York?”

She slid her arm through the crook of his and walked slowly toward the front door. “I’m not at liberty to say. What brings you to the Imperium? I know you didn’t just drop by to pass the time.”

She knew him pretty well considering they’d only spoken a handful of times, but he’d liked her the moment they’d met when she’d been in town to bear witness at the trial of an Imperium employee who’d drained a teenage girl almost to the point of death. What made it worse was that the vamp had called the girl, posing as a hospital employee, to say her mother had been in an accident to get her to come outside. Because the girl lived, the man hadn’t been put to death. But if Campbell had to guess, he’d bet wherever he was now he was wishing he had been. A life sentence had quite a different meaning for a vampire.

The baroness had told the man to his face that he not only was a disgrace to the Imperium and vampires everywhere but also gave pond scum a bad name.

Baroness Flanders was what one might call filthy stinking rich, and so she said whatever she wanted and no one challenged her.

He debated telling her about his run-in with Drogan.

“Come, now,” she said as they descended the front steps outside and headed slowly up the sidewalk. “I know you were in with Drogan, and I know that the man is a pompous ass.”

He laughed then told her the extent of his conversation.

“You like this girl.” It wasn’t a question.

He didn’t contradict her. “She is a good person. Sometimes it seems those are hard to find these days.”

“What makes her a good person?”

“She’s kind, selfless, feeds the homeless.” He looked down at the baroness. “She’s only the second human I’ve ever met who believes all vampires aren’t like the Soulless. Granted, our kind hasn’t really advertised otherwise.”

The baroness smiled and patted his arm. “She sounds good for you. It sometimes isn’t a popular viewpoint among my colleagues, but I think it’s very important to remain as close to our human selves as possible. Understanding of differences often takes a great deal of time to come to pass, but I have hopes of one day seeing humans and vampires coexisting in a friendlier, easier way.”