“Erm. Should I leave? Apparently you two would like a little private time.”
He kissed her the way he wanted to kiss her from that moment on, tasting every last morsel of her, his hands full of her breasts, his mind consumed with the hunger for her.
“I probably should. Perhaps the dog would like walkies?”
It wasn’t enough. He needed to feed, but only from her. He needed the taste of her on his tongue, filling all the dark spots inside him with her warmth and light and goodness.
“Walkies, dog? Good boy. I’ll just take you out for a little walk, and hopefully by the time you’re done, Merrick and Tempest won’t be naked and writhing around on the seat. Not that I care what you do in your private time, but you are paying me by the hour, and the trail is getting colder with each passing minute. Well, then! Kelso, is it? Shall we go find a nice spot to take a dump? You, that is, not me, because lucky for all of us, there is a petrol station right there behind us should the need arise. Not that I’d announce to you both that there was that need, because there are some things one should just pull a shade on. You’re still going at it, aren’t you? I thought perhaps one or both of you would come up for air, but no, I see I was wrong. Right. Well. I reckon that’s our cue, my lad. Out we go.”
Who is that man?
Merrick, absorbed in thoughts of how he could get Tempest naked, dragged his mind off her luscious, delectable self and onto what she had asked.
He is a thief taker.
Oh, that’s right, you told me about him. Wait, you’re stopping? Why?
Merrick realized just how close he was to taking her right there in the front seat, and gently pushed her back to her side of the car. “Because it’s still light out, and if I did all the things that you want me to do to you here, people would see. What were you saying about being kidnapped?”
“Hmm? My lips feel like they should be bruised.” She touched her mouth, which just made him stare at her lips, wanting to taste them yet again. “Do they look bruised? You are an awesome kisser. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
“Stop tempting me. Who was kidnapped?”
“I told you already. Ellis and Kelso and I were grabbed and stuffed in a car.”
“Ah.” He dragged his gaze off her mouth.
She gave him a look of disgruntled disbelief. “Ah? Is that all you’re going to say? Ah? Just like it didn’t matter that I was kidnapped?”
“Were you harmed?”
“No, but ...” She waved an arm around in vague gestures of incomprehension. “But in all of C. J. Dante’s books, when a heroine is kidnapped, the vampire goes nutso cuckoo. He clutches her to his chest, and declares the kidnapper will die for touching her, and generally slips into super-protective mode. Why aren’t you doing that?”
“You say you aren’t hurt, and I can see that you are well and able-bodied. I believe in saving my rage for situations where it can be used, not wasted on empty gestures.”
“Well, I like that! Dante’s vampires don’t use empty gestures! They love their Beloveds! They can’t live without them.” She poked him in the chest. “And they admit it, unlike some pigheaded vampires I could name.” She poked him again, evidently for good measure.
“I will repeat yet again that real Dark Ones are not the same as those in Christian’s books.” He absently watched Savian walk the dog along a strip of grass. “Who kidnapped you, and why?”
“Cousin Carlo.” She sounded slightly sulky, but he ignored that to pin her back with a look that would have scared anyone else.
“What? Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen him?”
“I did!”
“You did not! I would have remembered if you’d told me that.”
“I most certainly did tell you. I told you just a few minutes ago, when you were doing all that thinking that you didn’t let me see. What exactly were you thinking about so deeply that you didn’t hear me?”
He looked away, feeling somewhat martyred.
“You were thinking smutty things about me, weren’t you?” She looked downright delighted. “The sorts of things you let me see right before you made me kiss you.”
“I was not,” he answered; then something compelled him to correct himself. “It was only a few of those things. Others were added once you lunged at me.”
“It was a good lunging,” she said, smiling smugly to herself. He let that go, honking the horn until Savian returned with the dog.
“Carlo has been spotted,” he announced when both man and dog were back in the car. “Tempest will now tell us what happened.”
