“I wanted to get you lavender,” he told her. “I know you like it.” Her hair always smelled like lavender, tempting and clean. He caught a hint of it now, in fact, and it made him yearn to run his hands through her silky strands and bury his face in it. She looked up at him expectantly, her eyes shining brightly. Again he cleared his throat, his body aching for her as it never had. “But no one in Vegas sells it,” he continued. “So I went with something that smells almost as sweet.”
Her smile broadened and she ducked her head. “I love them,” she said quietly. “They’re beautiful.” She gazed down at them a moment more and then seemed to catch herself. She straightened, her smile faded, and she struck him with a suddenly guarded expression. “But I still want to know how you found me,” she told him. “And . . .” She paused, looked at the floor, toed the doorframe in the carpet, and looked up at him once more. “And I want to know what you want from me.”
What I want . . . Uriel could have growled with the hunger he felt when he thought about what he wanted from her. If she had the slightest idea, she would slam the door shut and bolt it. And then call the Marines.
Instead, he concentrated on forcing the fangs that had erupted in his mouth to shrink once more. And he shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them busy. “The truth is, I had no idea you would be in Vegas tonight,” he said. “I woke up and had to . . . eat.” He glanced at her nervously and then quickly averted his gaze. “Azrael brought me here.”
“Then—” She broke off, and he looked up to study her face. He could almost see the wheels spinning in her head. “Azrael knew I was here, didn’t he?”
Uriel nodded. There was no point in denying it. “Did Samael hurt you?” he asked then, surprised by his own question. It must have been burning in the back of his brain for him to suddenly blurt it out. But he found that even as he focused on the subject, his blood felt colder in his veins. His eyes felt hotter and his teeth throbbed in his gums.
Eleanore looked up at him in sudden silence, her own dark blue eyes widening slightly. He was tempted, then and there, to yank the band off of his wrists so that he could read her thoughts. There was fear in her eyes. And something else.
But she swallowed hard; he could hear it pushing past her tight throat, and she shook her head. “No,” she said. “He didn’t hurt me.”
He didn’t believe her. Not for a second. There was something she wasn’t telling him. But there were no markings on her body that he could see and he would know if she were in pain; he would be able to smell the cortisol and adrenaline flooding her system.
All he could smell right now was the lavender in her hair, the cinnamon on her tongue, and the heady scent of roses.
He cocked his head to one side and leveled his jade-green eyes on her once more. She fidgeted and captured a lock of her hair between her fingers in nervous agitation. “Uriel, can you read my mind now?” she asked. “I mean, now that you’re a vampire?”
He smiled and shook his head, holding up his wrist. “Not with this on.”
She glanced at the bracelet and he saw the memories flood her features. She was still angry about what had happened at the mansion. “I’m sorry, Ellie,” he told her honestly. “Max suggested I keep it with me.” He’d taken the bracelet as a precaution, but when it came down to it, he knew in his heart that he had hesitated in using it because he would never be able to force Eleanore to do anything against her will. “I never would have used it on you,” he admitted. He prayed that she could see the urgency in his eyes. “I hope you believe me.”
She studied him closely and he found himself unaccountably nervous under the scrutiny. Finally, she wiped her palms on her jeans and nodded. “I believe you.”
Relief flooded him, fueling his courage. “May I come in, Ellie?”
She swallowed hard again. “I don’t know,” she said. “If I let you in, can you control yourself?”
No.
“Yes,” he said, holding up his wrist once more. The gold band gleamed under the hall lights. “And I’m properly collared.”
She smiled at that, her beautiful face cracking a true grin. His stomach fluttered, his muscles tensed, and his heart melted.
“All right,” she said, stepping back out of the way. “You can come in.”
Uriel bit back his smile of triumph and stepped into her suite. Samael had provided her with a corner suite; it was extravagant in the extreme. He could smell the lingering scent of strawberries and chocolate, wine and cheese. The air felt filtered and recycled to the point of sterilization. The carpet was plush, the colors muted, and the fixtures marble. Vases of fresh mistine orchids decorated every table surface.
His gaze narrowed on the flower vase nearest to him. They were Samael’s doing.
Behind him, the door clicked shut and Eleanore sniffed the roses again. In a burst of vampire speed and before she could turn back around to face him, Uriel grabbed the vase of flowers, took the orchids out, tossed them in the nearby receptacle, and then held the vase out toward Eleanore.
“I’m going to put these in some water,” she said as she turned to face him. And then she frowned. “Where’d you get the vase?”
“Does it matter?” he said with one of his disarming smiles.
She gave him a quizzical look and then shook her head a little as if she didn’t really want to know.
Ellie took the vase from him and turned her attention back to the roses. “Not that putting these in water will help any. I may be able to heal humans, but I have a black thumb with plants.” As she said it, her grip tightened on the roses as if in frustration.
He almost heard the thorn pierce her flesh as it slid in. He certainly heard the thump of her heart beneath the stab of pain. And he could instantly smell the blood.
She glanced down at the welling blood, shook her head in mute irritation, and strode to the bathroom.
Uriel stood in the middle of her hotel room, his heart hammering, his blood roaring in his ears. The scent of her blood was all around him. The roses had been a mistake; what had he been thinking? The slightest possibility that she would slice herself open was beyond dangerous for him.
Right now, it was all he could do to prevent himself from having his way with her. He could take her by surprise. He had strength and speed on her. It would be so easy to throw her on the bed and hold her down while he sank both his cock and his teeth into her gorgeous, delicious body.
Get ahold of yourself! He pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes and turned toward the window, trying to focus on the sounds and sights and smells beyond the glass. You need control, he told himself. Get control. Get control....
“Would you like to go for a walk?” he asked, his voice tight, his forehead beading with sweat as he fought with his urges.
“Where did you want to go?” she called from the other room.
Uriel took a deep, penetrating breath and let it out slowly.
“Uriel?”
After two more deep breaths, he felt a semblance of calm returning and straightened to face the bathroom. He shoved his hands back into his pockets and made his way to the bathroom doorway. I’m in control, he thought, as he leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and watched her tend to the flowers.
“Have you seen the lights on Fremont?” he asked. His tone was low, his voice still much tighter than he’d have preferred it to be.
“No,” she admitted, arranging the bouquet on the right-hand side of the marble counter. She then turned toward him and waited for him to move out of the way.
He remained where he was. He really didn’t want to move. She was trapped in front of him and he liked it. I’m wearing the bracelet, he thought grimly. And I still can’t control myself.
Eleanore’s pulse ratcheted up a few notches. He could hear it. He knew he was spearing her with a hard look and he could tell by the way she looked at him that she noticed every one of his muscles was bunched beneath the material of his thermal shirt.
His body felt as if it
were preparing to pounce.
She tore her gaze from his chest and crossed her arms over hers in a defensive gesture. Something in his eyes must have been scaring her. Not that he could blame her. He could imagine he looked pretty scary right about now.
A few long seconds ticked slowly by and, finally, he obligingly moved out of the way. It wasn’t easy. She slowly slid past him, stiffening slightly as her body brushed by his. Electricity buzzed between them, thickening the air and holding her momentarily in place. Her breath caught softly and he’d never been so tempted in his life to reach out and grab something. He wanted to kiss her again. He’d have given his right hand for it in that moment.
But he let her go. This was a tentative time. Her trust needed to be earned again. Sheep suit on, he told himself. Keep it together, Uriel.
She moved past him and out into the main room of the suite and Uriel followed closely behind her. “Then I’ll take you,” he said, referring to the light show on Fremont Street.
Eleanore spun to face him. Of course, she knew he was referring to the lights on Fremont. But she didn’t miss the double entendre. He could tell she knew exactly what he’d been thinking.
“Sounds good,” she choked.
She turned away again and, with hands that shook slightly, she grabbed her purse. She pulled out her wallet and removed the money, her driver’s license, her credit card, and the room key. She shoved these things into the deep inside pocket of her zip-up hoodie and then pulled the hoodie on.
They left the hotel room and waited for the next elevator going down. There were three other people already inside when the doors slid open. Two were an elderly couple who looked very well-to-do. The third was a young woman, possibly in her late teens or early twenties, dressed in a sequined tank top and black silk miniskirt and wearing enough makeup to supply three stage performers. One of the first things Eleanore noticed about her was the abundance of goose bumps across her chilled flesh. Even in Vegas it was too cold at night in November for a tank top and no jacket.
But Eleanore quickly forgot about the goose bumps when the girl’s eyes widened in obvious recognition.
“Christopher Daniels!” she half whispered, half shrieked.
Eleanore found herself wanting to disappear. Oh no, she thought. Not again.
She tried to step back, but Uriel’s strong hand found her elbow and steered her onto the elevator. At the same time, he flashed a pearly white smile at the young woman and greeted her kindly.
“Are you in town filming?” the girl asked. Her eyes lit up. “Are you in costume? You look so much like Jonathan right now! What an amazing makeup job! Your skin looks so pale and your eyes so strange.” She reached up, as if she were going to touch him, and then caught herself and pulled her arm back down. “Beautiful but strange!” she repeated, then laughed nervously and began fishing around in her sequined purse.
“You have to give me an autograph, please, it would mean so much, it would be the best thing to happen to me in Vegas. I mean, wait until Maria hears about this, oh my gosh—Christopher Daniels in my elevator! Are you staying at the August?”
Eleanore was getting dizzy listening to the girl. She could only watch in wonder as the girl hopped from one question to the next, all the while rooting around in her purse for pen and paper.
The wealthy elderly couple in the elevator watched in silence as well, their facial expressions never changing.
“Oh no, I can’t find anything to write on. I could have sworn I had at least some rice paper in here for my pores, but no, nothing, I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t get your autograph. Maria will never believe me—”
“I think I have a solution,” Uriel said, his deep, charismatic voice easily overriding hers.
The girl blinked and smiled a brilliant, expectant smile as Uriel shrugged off his leather jacket and held it out for her. “Take this,” he told her. “It’s got my name scribbled on the label, so no need to sign anything.” He smiled a completely disarming smile at the young fan, and a part of Eleanore melted right then and there in the elevator.
The girl stared openmouthed at the jacket and didn’t seem to know what to do.
“Go on,” he told her gently. “I was rather warm anyway. I can always get another one.” He chuckled softly, maneuvering her so that he could slide the jacket over her cold, bare arms, then stepped back.
The girl positively swam in the leather, it was so big on her, but the look on her face was of such grateful adoration, Ellie actually felt sad for her.
“I . . . I don’t know what to . . . I mean . . .”
“Think nothing of it,” Uriel insisted. “Have a nice time in Vegas.”
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open and Uriel wasted no time in grasping Eleanore’s arm once more to pull her out of the elevator beside him. He said nothing as he steered her through the crowd in the lobby, past slot machines and men with radio communication devices in their ears and women dressed in uncomfortable, revealing uniforms, carrying trays topped with drinks and poker chips and dollar bills.
Eleanore noticed none of it. She kept thinking of the look on that girl’s face when Uriel had handed her his jacket. It wasn’t what she had expected. Not of him. It made her realize she didn’t know him very well at all.
Ellie barely had time to look around, he spirited them through the lobby so quickly. But it didn’t matter. At the moment, it was Uriel that had the bulk of her attention. What he had done in the elevator had admittedly left her a little breathless. She couldn’t imagine any other star doing something so selfless. Not that she knew any of them personally. Except for the Masked One.
The moment Uriel had taken off his jacket and draped it over the girl’s shivering frame, a part of Ellie had melted. She’d felt as suddenly warm as the girl must have, wrapped snuggly in Uriel’s kindness.
Uriel finally moved them through the large double doors at the entrance and out into the Las Vegas night. The temperature had decreased quite a bit since Ellie had arrived that afternoon. That happened in the desert; once the sun went down, the thermometer plummeted a good twenty to thirty degrees. It had been seventy earlier that day, but now bottomed out in the high forties.
On the sidewalk, he stopped and turned toward her. “Are you warm enough?” he asked.
“Yes,” Eleanore told him truthfully. In fact, she felt flushed. She gazed up at him and offered him a sincere smile. The gesture seemed to take him by surprise. He blinked, his gaze dropping from her eyes to her lips and then back.
She almost laughed. “What you did back there was incredibly kind,” she told him.
Uriel’s brow furrowed. “Kind?” he asked, clearly confused. “What do you mean?”
“It was a very selfless thing to do, giving that girl your jacket like that.”
At this, he looked positively bewildered. He blinked several more times, his frown deepening. And then he slowly turned to face her fully and gently took her by the upper arms. He shook his head. “That shouldn’t mean anything, Ellie. I gave away something I will never miss. To me, it meant nothing—”
“But to her, it means everything,” Ellie finished for him. “Don’t you see? You really made that girl’s millennium. And you certainly didn’t have to.”
Uriel seemed to be out of words. For several long seconds, his intense green eyes skirted the planes of her face, that same surprised expression softening his features. And then, finally, he cupped her face and moved closer. “If I had known it would make you look at me the way you are now, I would have done it days ago.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After all that, Uriel thought. Wars and battles and earthquakes and floods . . . nothing he had ever done had made him feel as good as he felt in that moment, standing there on that sidewalk, his precious archess smiling up at him with what he could have sworn was pride.
He had never seen anything so beautiful. Two thousand years’ worth of experiences on Earth and he had never laid eyes upon something as stunningly gor
geous as the smile she now wore. It was like the sun on his soul.
He could hear her heart beating hard and steady behind her ribs and scent the slight hormonal change in her bloodstream. She was excited. Her gaze flicked from his eyes to his lips and back again and he knew that she was wondering whether he was going to kiss her.
Oh, yes, he thought. Nothing could stop me.
As if she could sense his sudden, hard determination, her pupils expanded, her lips parted, and he heard her breath catch. The effect this had on him was instantaneous. His fangs erupted in his mouth, his vision sharpened, and he heard his blood rush through his eardrums.
“I’m going to kiss you, Ellie,” he told her suddenly, speaking to her as if they were the only two people in Las Vegas at that moment. It was a warning; he was a vampire now and things were different. He was a hunter. She was his prey.
He used his gentle grip on her face to hold her still before him as he closed the small gap between them and leaned in. “Stop me now,” he whispered. “You won’t get another chance.”
Eleanore said nothing and he felt her shudder against his hard body. He could wait no longer. She shuddered once more as his lips found hers.
He wanted to be gentle; she deserved as much. But when the first butterfly-soft touch of his lips against hers sparked with electricity, it ignited something volatile inside of him. She moaned against his mouth and Uriel nearly lost control. He moved in for the kill, deepening his kiss with the ferocity of the need riding him. He felt her stiffen slightly when her tongue brushed the tips of his very sharp fangs, but he held her fast, unwilling to let her slip away.
In the next instant, she was melting against him, giving in to his demands and moaning against his lips. He could hear her heart racing, like music for his deadly dance. And he could smell her.... She was wet for him.
It took every bit of strength for him to suppress the growl that the evidence of her desire ripped from deep within him. He wanted a bed. He needed more of her....