Tall, Dark, and Deadly: Seven Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance

  He tried to go slow, knowing he was a large man, but she pushed down and impaled herself.

  “Oh, God!” she cried out.

  He started to withdraw, but her short-lived exclamation quickly turned to a moan. She reached over her head and buried her fingers in his hair. Holding on tight, she squirmed on his lap and ground him deeper.

  Damn. She turned him inside out. With his arms around her waist, he held her in place, even though she protested the sudden restriction. “Slow down, love. I want this to last.”

  He rocked against her, slowly at first, then with a building tempo. “So tight. You’re fucking killing me.”

  Her moans and cries of pleasure enhanced the exquisite milking strokes of her walls along his cock. No way in hell would he last.

  He loosened and removed the hold she had on his hair and kissed her shoulder. “Turn around. I want to see you while I love you.”

  She lifted, turned, and lowered herself onto the bed, spreading her legs in invitation. Never had he seen a more magnificent sight.

  He moved between her thighs. “You’re absolutely beautiful.”

  A shy smile played on her lips. “You’re quite handsome yourself, vampire.”

  With his shaft in hand, he stroked between her folds and, in one swift move, buried himself inside. The moment his sac bumped her bottom, they both released a moan. So damn complete.

  She dug into his hips with her fingers and wrapped her legs around his buttocks. He clutched her hands, slid them down his legs, and across her thighs to her juncture. “Touch yourself for me. Show me what makes you come undone.”

  Her eyelids closed, then slowly she slipped two fingers into her curls. Emily mewled and made gentle circles across her clitoris.

  “Yes. Beautiful.” He continued to rock deep inside her.

  “More, Kenric. God, I want you so much.”

  He plunged deeper. Faster. Over and over. He had to feel her, skin to skin. Reaching forward, he pulled her from the bed and into his arms.

  Sweat ran down his temples. Her inner muscles clenched around him. He scraped his fangs over her pulse. Chills lifted against his lips, and she shuddered in his arms.

  He was right there.

  Kenric sank his fangs deep. Her blood, so sweet and heady, flooded his mouth, spinning the world away and suspending time. Emily screamed and arched against his hold. His cock erupted—there were no other words for it—jetting its release in a never-ending wave of pleasure. One he was sure his heart, and the wall he’d built around it, would never survive.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “That was…”

  Emily pulled her face out of the pillow she’d collapsed into and blew the hair out of her mouth. “Yeah.” She couldn’t form anything more coherent. Maybe she’d fried some of her brain cells with that last orgasm.

  Wow. Sex with Kenric St. James ought to come with a warning label.

  She glanced at the naked man lying partially on top of her. They had been in each other’s arms the entire day. She should have been starving by this point in the evening, since the only time she’d gotten out of bed was to relieve herself. But the last few hours with Kenric had flown by, and he’d filled her—satisfied her—in so many more ways than a meal ever could. Who needed food?

  “Sorry. Hope I wasn’t crushing you.” He rolled onto his side, sliding the rest of the way out of her.

  The sudden loss of contact made her want to pull him right back. “No. You were fine. More than fine.” She flashed him a smile.

  A grin spread across his face, and his blue eyes lit with mischief. Her heart skipped a beat. God, he was beautiful when he did that.

  “Come here.” He tugged at her arm. “I want to feel you against me.”

  He pulled her on top of him. Her breasts pressed against his firm chest. His roughened hands stroked her hair, then trailed up and down her arms. Mmm, so nice.

  Lowering her head against him, she closed her eyes and listened to the rapid beat of his heart. He sounded and felt so human, all hard male beneath her.

  Normal.

  So unlike what they’d just shared. Not your typical sex. It had been out of this world. Leaving her to wonder if she’d ever want ordinary again. Speaking of normal sex… Oh, no. Emily shot up in bed. “I can’t believe I did that.”

  “What?”

  Emily swung her head around to look at Kenric. He stared at her, confusion written on his face.

  “I can’t believe we did that without either one of us thinking about a condom.” She dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, God,” she groaned. “What kind of health care professional am I?”

  “You don’t have anything to worry about, Wildflower.”

  Emily lifted her head from her palms at his soothing words. She glanced back over her shoulder. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, I can’t give you anything.”

  “Oh…because you’re a…”

  “Right.” He nodded. “Seems that when you’re transformed, you’re… sterilized in the process.” She must have appeared shocked, because what looked like a weak attempt at a smile formed at the corners of his mouth. “Hey, but on the upside, immortality makes you clean.”

  Emily turned and leaned over, resting her head on his chest. “Well, I guess that’s something of a perk.” She tried to make light of the conversation as she wrapped her arms around his chest in a gentle hug. Thank goodness he didn’t carry any diseases she needed to worry about, but the way he’d said the word “sterilized” made her heart ache for him.

  “I hate to bring up more uncomfortable memories.” She lifted her head and brought her hands together, propping her chin on top of them. This was probably the best opening she was going to get to find out why this woman wanted her dead. “But can you tell me a little more about this—your creator, I think you called her—and why she feels like she has to kill me?”

  He shifted beneath her. “How about you go first and tell me who hurt you so much that you would run from the person who wants to keep you safe?”

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I asked you first. Besides, I think I should know something about the person who wants me dead.”

  A resolute sigh left him as he slid his hand down her back and squeezed her against him.

  “From what she has told me, Marguerite is somewhere around six hundred years old. An ancient. She has always been incredibly strong for a female vampire, but she is obsessed with power. The greater her source, the more capable she is in manipulating and controlling not only humans with her mind and blood, but other vampires as well.

  His heart pounded beneath her palms. She lowered her head back down and wrapped her arms around him, hoping her calm presence would help him tell her his story.

  “I was thirty-two when I met Marguerite three hundred years ago.” He chuckled, but she had a feeling it wasn’t because of fond memories. “Well, if you could call it a meeting. I was on the battlefield, fighting back home in England with my regiment. I’d taken a blade to my flank and gone down. Next thing I knew, I woke up in a cold, dark cell chained to a wall like an animal.”

  Emily jerked her head up, enraged on Kenric’s behalf. “Dear God.”

  “For three years, she kept me as her personal meal and… And any other needs she had.” His gaze diverted from hers.

  Three years? She shuddered, and her gut twisted into a painful knot. That monster had kept him as her slave for sex and blood. How could he have mentally survived that kind of hell?

  A part of her didn’t want to hear anymore. She couldn’t bear the mental images his words conjured. Didn’t want them burned into her brain cells. This proud warrior, broken and tortured, as no man ever should be—dehumanized. Emily’s stomach soured. She couldn’t even imagine the level of humiliation he’d suffered.

  Suddenly, he clutched her face, startling her. The blue of his eyes darkened like the sea battling a raging storm.

  “I didn’t want her.” He shook his head. “I never did
. She had ways of getting into my head and making my body do things. You have to believe me. I never wanted her.”

  The desperation in his voice broke her heart. Dear God, the abuse he must have suffered. Her jaw clenched, and her temples throbbed. She wanted to scream—cry out until her throat burned from the overwhelming sense of helplessness. She didn’t know how to take his pain away. Dammit. She was a nurse, trained to ease suffering. Yet she was at a loss to how to make this all better. What she wouldn’t give to possess the magic to turn back the hands of time, dive into the pit of hell where he’d been chained, and kill the bitch that did this to him. She brushed her palm across the back of his hand, wishing like hell she could somehow act as a wick and absorb some of the hurt.

  “Yes, I believe you. Of course I do. It was rape.” Emily leaned forward and placed a soft kiss to his lips. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I understand that kind of abuse.” Maybe not the molestation, but the mental and physical abuse she could certainly comprehend. He hadn’t asked for it, and none of it was his fault. He’d been a victim.

  And he’d survived.

  Marguerite may have destroyed his human DNA, but unwittingly what she’d unleashed back into the night was an even stronger version of the man than before. Emily’s admiration of him soared to a new level. She had respected him prior to the revelation about his past, but now…. He’d risen out of Marguerite’s clutches and turned his tragedy into a crusade to protect the innocent. In her eyes, Kenric was nothing less than a hero. Yet Emily knew if she tried to tell him the two were connected, he’d deny it. He would see it only as his duty—the right thing to do.

  His hands softened on her face before he claimed her with a kiss of his own. Tenderly, he traced her lips. She opened up and invited him inside. Their tongues slid back and forth, stroking each other in a sensual dance.

  With a sigh, Emily broke their kiss and brushed his coarse shadow of a beard with her chin before delving for more answers. “She made you a vampire against your will?”

  Kenric nodded in silence before explaining to her how Marguerite had sensed his untapped psychic abilities while he was human. He’d always possessed a very strong second sense, an ability to see things before they happened, which he’d never told anyone.

  The stronger the mind, the more powerful the vampire. In fact, he could become a Master, and Marguerite had always wanted to mate a Master. She’d become obsessed with creating a perfect male for herself. One who could control the elements, who had the potential for superior psychic influence and an ability to shift into multiple forms.

  Emily rolled off him and pulled up the sheet from the foot of the bed to cover herself before sitting up. He repositioned and turned onto his side to face her. She reached out and brushed a wave of dark curls away from his brow. His jaw was rigid, but his gaze warmed her when he turned his cheek into her hand.

  He lifted his head from her palm. “A vampire has the ability to mate for life at a soul level. What she wanted out of the deal was a share of my power. Marguerite is an anomaly among female vampires. She’s very strong. Most females are pretty weak. Even with age, they are unable to become Masters themselves. If they mate, a female can tap into her partner’s power through a psychic link.”

  “Ah. I see where you’re going with this. If Marguerite got her claws into you, she would become even more powerful. More powerful than any master vampire alone.”

  “Exactly.” He narrowed his eyes. “And I can’t allow that.”

  “This woman—and I use the term loosely—has threatened everyone you care about all these years because you spurned her?”

  “Yes.” He lightly traced the side of her face.

  “How bad has it gotten, Kenric?” She didn’t want to know, but she had to. The depth of sorrow in his gaze choked her.

  “I was engaged once,” he mumbled.

  “Oh.” The bottom of her heart gave way. She took a deep breath, trying to push past the weight in her chest. “You’ve been in love before? I guess that’s a stupid question. With as long as you’ve lived, I’m sure you’ve loved many women in your time.” She was rambling, but if she kept talking, it didn’t hurt as much.

  Nothing to it.

  She could do this.

  “No. I haven’t.” He lowered his gaze. “Not since Annice have I allowed myself to get close to any woman. That was three centuries ago.”

  “What?” She placed a palm on his chest, and he lifted his lashes. “You haven’t had a relationship in three centuries? You’ve been alone all this time?” she whispered. How in the world did anyone survive that kind of loneliness? “That must have been an incredible love you two shared.”

  He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Her hand fell away.

  Oh God, how could she compete with the memory of a woman that had endured hundreds of years?

  “Annice was…” His face wore a distant, lost expression. “…a sweet, docile woman, who would’ve done anything for me.”

  A hard lump formed in Emily’s throat. She didn’t want to hear any more and opened her mouth to change the subject.

  “But she didn’t have half the fire you possess.” He rolled his head to the side and burned her with the passion in his eyes.

  The moisture in her mouth disappeared under the heat. She licked her lips with her too-dry tongue and asked, “What happened to her? Did Marguerite have something to do with it?”

  “You could say that.” He stared again at the popcorn ceiling of her bedroom and started to laugh but stopped, looking more pissed than amused. The tips of his fangs captured the light that shone through the open bedroom door and glinted under his lip. “It finally occurred to me one night that the best way to handle Marguerite was to play her game. Stop resisting. I convinced her that I was starting to fall for her, my distaste for her waning.” Emily ran her fingertips over the back of his hand, tracing the raised scars that marred the skin.

  “Marguerite started giving me small amounts of freedom and more frequent feedings as her trust in me began to build. I used those few weeks to gain strength, to learn how to use my new powers. And then one night, after she was finished with me, and I’d had my fill of her blood, I manipulated that surge of power and phased back home.” His gaze darted to Emily. “She never saw it coming. Marguerite was so caught up in the fantasy that I would be hers, she never thought I would leave.”

  He looked away once more. Obviously, there was more to the story. “I had to see Annice one more time. I wanted to ask forgiveness for having disappeared from her life for three years. We had been engaged before I had left for the battle.” His Adam’s apple dipped before he continued. “Marguerite had warned me that if I did not give myself to her, I would have no one. She would not share.” His hand fisted in the sheet. “Foolishly, I thought if I could only glimpse Annice one last time, talk to her for a few seconds just to make sure she was okay, I would be able to move on. Let her be in peace.”

  “Marguerite followed you.” She sensed what must have happened next. Marguerite had murdered Annice. He was remembering another woman, yet his pain tore her up inside. She should be jealous, but all she wanted to do was hold him.

  “I saw Annice in the gardens of her home that night. She was alone. I thought it the perfect moment, so I stepped from behind the trees, and she ran. Right into my arms. She’d thought I’d died.”

  “Before I could explain, Marguerite phased in, ripped her from my hold, and slashed her throat.”

  Emily flinched and grabbed her rebelling midsection.

  “It happened so fast. I was still a young vampire and hadn’t sensed her presence. Annice died because of my ignorance.”

  The frustration and pain in his voice was almost unbearable. She wanted to say…something. Anything to ease the hurt. Yet she sat there, barely keeping down the contents of her stomach.

  “My vision went red, and I attacked Marguerite, ripping and clawing at her with everything I had. I remember standing over her bloodied
body, feeling not a shred of remorse, but before I could make my final blow, she disappeared from beneath me.” He shook his head. “I would have thought it impossible, considering the damage I’d done.

  “Marguerite went deep into hiding. She knew if I found her, I would do everything in my power to see her dead.” For a moment, an eerie red glow appeared in his eyes, then faded.

  “My God, what you’ve been through. How you must hate her.” For what that bitch did to him, she deserved to die.

  “I searched relentlessly in Europe, for a century, until I got a lead that she may have gone to America. I caught the next ship heading west. Not easy for a vampire, but I survived.” He rolled back onto his side and faced her. Lifting his arm, he allowed his fingertips to follow the curves of her arms as he spoke. His hardened expression softened, as if the feel of her skin soothed him. “That’s how I came to be in South Carolina. I didn’t find any evidence of her here, but I decided to stay and try to start a new life for myself. That’s when I formed the Enclave.” He threaded his fingers into her hair, his gaze one of confident determination—and affection. “I knew there was a possibility that one day she would come for me again. But this time, I would be ready.”

  They stared at each other in silence, both digesting the weight of the reality between them.

  “So, now she’s here and she still wants you.”

  “And now, thanks to her new source of power and skill, she knows there’s a woman I care about, because you’re in my head.”

  Heat rose to Emily’s cheeks. “Any idea how she’s gained this new power?”

  He told her of the info they’d learned about a vessel containing the essence of an ancient Croatian vampire, Madunic, and its implications before adding, “When you came in before, she was in my head. She confirmed it. She’s dosing herself with it to achieve whatever little feat she desires at the moment. Like what you witnessed—she wanted to prove that she had the strength to hold me and recreate the hunger I’d endured centuries ago when she had turned me.”