PS01 - Tall, Dark & Lonely (47 page)

“You’re sure you’re not going to get bored of me in say, a hundred years?”

The muscles in his neck strained as he growled long and loud, “Hell no.”

She moved beneath him, meeting his every thrust. “How about a thousand years?”

“No.”

“How about a million years?”

Ephraim lowered his weight on her. He gently brushed her lips with his as he moved with lazy thrusts in the way he knew she

liked. She licked her lips, moaning continuously beneath him.

“I will never grow tired of you. Not in a million, zillion, quadrillion years.”

“Why?” She looked serious for a moment.

His expression softened. “Because I absolutely love and adore you, Madison.”

“I love you too, Ephraim. So much.” He took her mouth in a searing kiss.

She pulled back after a few minutes. Giggling uncontrollably as she asked, “What about a zillion, billion, million, quadrillion-“

He sighed in exasperation. “I see I’m not doing this right if you’re still able to talk.” His arms wrapped around her.

“What-ah!” she gasped as they were suddenly floating in the air towards the ceiling. He effortlessly turned them over so that

she was lying on top of him. Her back touched the ceiling as he took her hands into his and pinned them against the ceiling

above their heads.

“Now let’s see if we can’t find something more interesting to do than talking, shall we?”

A sneak peek at the first Sentinel Novel:

Without Regret

Chapter 1

Present Day

Seattle, Washington

“Okay, this probably wasn’t such a good idea,” Isabella murmured softly to herself as she gripped the worn shoulder straps of

her favorite backpack, tightly.

She stumbled and quickly righted herself. She straightened her baseball cap as she quickened her pace. Okay, so she admitted

she probably had no business being in this area at three in the morning by herself. She was too short, had two large melons that

somehow passed for breasts that constantly threw her off balance, and had the fighting skills of a day old baby. Why she ever

thought agreeing to this meeting was a good idea she really didn't know.

Well, maybe the prospective buyer of her program had something to do with it. Normally her potential buyers met her at

restaurants, downtown offices and a few times she was flown to Europe. What she wouldn't give to meet a client in a stuffy

office during the day for this sale. Of course that couldn't happen with this particular program, it being extremely illegal and

all.

Not that she was in the business of creating illegal programs or anything. This one time had been a complete mistake. Okay,

illegal might be a poor choice of words, but she was pretty sure that was the point the FBI Agent was getting to the other night.

She hadn't been happy finding her small apartment ransacked. It was more insulting that anything. Did they really think she kept

her work in her apartment?

That would be pretty stupid considering how many Fortune 500 companies were after her work. A few of them didn't take

being outbid well. Just over this past year her apartment had been broken into thirty-seven times. The only thing they found was

a small collection of CD's she may have set up to look like her programs. What they got if they stole them, and they did each

and every time, was a dummy program full of virussy goodness. They could scan those discs until the cows came home and

they'd never detect their true nature until after the damage was done.

It took her program twenty-two point six seconds to infect a large network. The sweet part of her viruses was that she was the

only one in the world that could put a stop to them and recover all the work. Well, recover might be an overstatement since

what her program really did was create the illusion of destruction. All she required was an apology and a check to cover the

damage to her apartment and time before she fixed it.

A large figure suddenly stepped in front of her, scaring the living hell out of her. Isabella screeched and stumbled backwards,

falling flat on her ass. She pushed her tan baseball cap up carefully so she could see the imposing figure. The heavy B.O.

followed shortly after, making her gag.

"Have you seen my kitty?" the gruff voice demanded.

Isabella shook her head.

"He's around here somewhere. He ran out of the house when I was going out to milk the cows. Now I've got to look for him and

the cows are gonna have to wait to be milked. They're gonna be mighty angry with their tits sore from the milk."

"Oh, ah....I hate when that happens," Isabella said, not really knowing how she should respond. She didn't speak crazy, but if he

let her live she'd be willing to learn.

He nodded firmly as he sighed heavily. "I guess I should go check the barn," he said, heading back into the alley between two

brick buildings.

Isabella jumped to her feet, fixed her hat, and moved her ass. The last thing she needed was for him to come back and mistake

her for a cow that needed milking. She made her way to the small park and found the bench for the meeting place five minutes

later. She sat down and hugged her backpack to her chest, trying to catch her breath.

In no way was being in a rundown park at three in the morning a smart idea just because she was desperate to get rid of her

program. It wasn't over money, she was far from poor, but she couldn't stomach destroying one of her babies or allowing the

government to take it from her. It was pride. Stupid pride that was going to get her a slot on the ten o'clock news tomorrow

night when they found her nude body in some embarrassing position tomorrow, well, really today.

"This is stupid," she decided to say out loud just to add emphasis to something she already knew. She couldn't let her program

go to someone who needed to meet in places like this. What in the hell was she thinking? In the wrong hands her program could

do so much damage.

This really was not one of her finer moments, she decided.

Groaning, she got to her feet. Well, she'd have to chop this up to a life lesson and figure something else out. She started

towards the street, hoping she'd spot a taxi that could take her safely back home. She was not looking forward to the return

walk. She idly wondered if her farmer buddy had any luck with his kitty when several figures stepped out of the darkness in

front of her.

"Miss. Smith, you weren't leaving, were you?" a tall thin man with a slight accent she couldn't quite place asked in an amused

tone.

"Ah, no?" She forced her eyes to focus on anything other than the scar running down his face and the one across his throat.

Something told her the man wouldn't appreciate staring.

"That's very good," the man said, gesturing to one of the other men to take her bag from her. She resisted the urge to fight him,

reminding herself that she really sucked at fighting. Seriously, it was sad. Her only move was a cross between a windmill

motion and bitch slapping, which usually missed its mark and sent her stumbling.

The man took the bag and opened it. He tossed her candy bars to the ground and she almost bitch slapped him then and there.

What kind of sick bastard came between a woman and her chocolate? Her copy of
Lord of the Rings
soon followed along with

her iPod, bottle of water, and cell phone. When he pulled out her Netbook she nearly winced at the thought of that getting

tossed into the pile. It wasn't her main computer. It was just a cheap little computer that she used when she was out and wanted

to play around with some code. Still, she loved it. It was small, cute, and had a picture of a baby groundhog standing on its hind

legs eating a carrot set as her wallpaper. It was really cute.

He handed the computer off to one of his men. A moment later he pulled out three CD cases. "I presume this is what I'm after?"

Nope, but Isabella nodded slowly. She forced herself to remain cool. If they were going to kill her than at least she could die

knowing they just screwed themselves over with no way to repair it. Ever.

"That's it. Where's my money?" she asked, trying to sound sufficiently afraid, no problem there.

The man smiled a truly ugly smile. Were those canines long and pointy? She gave herself a mental shake. Her mind was

obviously messing with her in its panicked stricken state.

"Oh, I have something much better for you. You see your skills....well, they're very useful to my employer. He'd like to offer

you a permanent place in our
company
," he said the last word as if it amused him.

The other two men snickered.

Oh, that couldn't be good......

"Um, thanks, but no thanks," she said, backing up.

One of the men grabbed her and hauled her back against his chest. One arm went across her chest, keeping her arms pinned to

her sides while his other hand gripped her chin and tilted her head back and to the side.

"Seriously, I don't make a good employee....I'm always late, I take long breaks, I suck at office politics, my desk is always

messy, I get cranky if I don't have a constant flow of caffeine, I've even been fired from volunteering, twice. I mean seriously

that should tell you something. Who gets fired from volunteering? If you just let me go I'm sure we can work something out on a

contractual basis," she rambled on nervously.

"Shhh, you're annoying me. Now shut up and let me do this. When you wake up everything will be fine," he said as he leaned

in.

Isabella's eyes widened to the point that she was actually afraid her eyes might pop out of her head. Either she was in a fear

induced hallucination or those two teeth were fangs. She didn't have much time to contemplate her situation before those very

long and very sharp teeth were in her neck.

She screamed as sharp pain tore through her. Isabella tried to breakaway only to find herself in a death grip. She immediately

stopped fighting when the grip became more painful than the bite and stood there whimpering as the man drank her blood.

There was no doubt in her mind that's what he was doing.

He was making slurping sounds!

The man suddenly stumbled back from her. She felt two small drops of hot liquid run down her skin beneath her shirt.
Ew!
The

man clutched his stomach, gasping.

"What's wrong?" the man holding her asked.

He sucked in a hard breath and managed to say, "Sentinel."

"Oh shit!" The man holding her shoved her away into the other man who shoved her right back. Great, they were playing keep

away. Nice. Between that and blood loss she was seriously ready to puke.

"Kill her!"
the man on the ground roared.

The two men stopped shoving her and pulled out guns. Isabella squeaked as she covered her head and dropped onto the ground

in the fetal position. From her position she watched in horror as the man who'd been drinking from her started to smoke.

Seconds later he was on fire.

"Sentinels!" one of the men yelled.

"You bitch! You tricked us!" the other man yelled.

Isabella squeezed her eyes tightly shut as the sounds of flesh hitting flesh, gunshots, and blood curdling screams tore through the

night. Something heavy landed on her legs, earning another frightened scream from her. A few seconds later it rolled off.

"Grab her!" a new voice said.

She gasped as she was hauled to her feet. A man with spiky blonde hair pressed a cross to her forehead. A freakin' cross! He

pulled her collar down and ran a finger over her bite marks.

"Hmmm," the man said. Intense blue eyes met hers. She squirmed under the rather unnerving observation. He was looking at her

like he could see her, really see her. Without a word, and much to her embarrassment, he yanked up her tee shirt and pointed a

flashlight at her navel.

"Hey!" she said as she tried to shove her shirt back down.

He ignored her as he ran a finger over the birthmark below her belly button. "You're unmated," he said.

Okay.......This night was just getting weirder and weirder. What next? Would he check the bottom of her foot to see if she was a

chocoholic?

She finally managed to shove her shirt down and took several steps back and nearly tripped over her bag. Keeping her eyes on

the four new people, two men and two women dressed in black fatigues, she bent down and quickly reloaded her bag with

shaky hands. They made no move to stop her, but just watched her as if they were waiting patiently for her to finish.

When she was done she stepped back, too afraid to take her eyes off them. She didn't feel like being anyone else's late night

snack again and she had no idea if these people were like whatever the hell those three guys were.

"Well, um, thanks. I'll just be going now," she said, taking several more steps back.

The man who helped himself to her navel took a careful step forward. "We need to talk to you," he said slowly as if he was

afraid of frightening her off.

She cleared her throat nervously, taking another step back. "Sure. Yeah, that sounds like great fun, but right now I have

somewhere to be."

"I'm afraid that I must insist that you stay," he said more firmly the same moment his three friends broke off and started moving

towards her.

"Okay, I guess I could-," she suddenly pointed behind them, "Look! Behind you!"