Page 52 of The Vampire Always Rises
Merrick turned the corner, and instantly hit the gas. Up ahead, he caught sight of a woman leading a white dog.
“Whoa! I can’t follow the trail if you drive like this—ack!” Savian was thrown forward against his seat belt when Merrick came to a quick stop.
He was out of the car and had his hands on Tempest before the fact registered in his brain. “Where the hell have you been? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you answer my text?” The need to kiss her grew until it was unbearable.
“Merrick! Oh, what are you doing he—” Tempest was forced to stop speaking when he gave in to the demand, and kissed the words right off her tongue. Her mouth was as hot and sweet as he knew it would be, and immediately, he wanted more.
“Wowzers,” she said when a tingling at the back of his neck warned him that he’d left the car without grabbing his hat. “That was ... hoo, baby! That was quite the greeting. Ack! You’re turning red. Merrick! What are you doing out in the sun!”
To his mingled amusement and annoyance, she started shooing him toward the car. Part of his mind protested that if he wanted to stand out and get burned by the sun, then he would do so, but luckily, sanity overrode that stubborn idiocy, and he hustled her and the dog into the car before taking his seat behind the wheel.
“Hullo,” Savian said, turning around in the seat to look at Tempest. “Savian Bartholomew at your service.”
“Hi, Savian. I’m Tempest Keye. Merrick, your neck is bright red. Do you have some aloe vera?”
“No. It will be fine.” He shot a little glare at Savian to warn the man to stop ogling Tempest. “Why didn’t you answer my text?”
She held up her phone. It was cracked and dirty. “A car ran over it. I had to use a stick to get it out from under an oil stand at the gas station, and just my luck, someone pulled in at the same time that I got it free. I don’t suppose my text got sent? The one telling you we were kidnapped?”
Merrick sighed softly to himself, and once again pulled off the road. “Would you mind changing seats with Tempest?” he asked Savian.
“No,” Savian said slowly, his eyebrows high on his forehead as he looked first at Merrick, then at Tempest. “Not at all. Happy to. Er ... the dog won’t mind?”
“Kelso is very chill. He seems to like most people,” Tempest said, and went around to take the front passenger seat.
Merrick waited until everyone was settled before asking, “Who was kidnapped?”
“I was. Well, Ellis and Kelso and me.” She leaned forward, putting her hand on his arm, sending streaks of heat rolling through his body. He breathed deeply to try to get a grip on the sensations that filled him, but that just heightened his awareness of the scent of her, sun-warmed, with hints of wood and petrol. “But that’s not the worst of it.”
What was wrong with him? He used to have perfect control of his emotions, and now a few minutes with a woman and he was as uncontrolled as a youth.
“Ellis and I were checking into the hotel—oh, I should talk to you about that, since I don’t want to have to sleep with Ellis—and all of a sudden, boom, there he was!”
He touched his forehead. Wasn’t that how mortals determined if they had a fever? He didn’t feel ill—Dark Ones didn’t sicken, as a rule, unless they were suffering from poisoning—but perhaps he’d been in contact with some virus that affected his kind.
“Who was there?” Savian asked from the backseat. “This really is a nice dog. He seems to think I have a treat in my pocket, though. Oh, wait, I do have some mints.”
He fought the hunger, the need to take Tempest in his arms, and do all those things to her that suddenly became the most important things in the world.
“It was my cousin Carlo.” Tempest squeezed his arm. He thought seriously of pulling out his phone and finding the nearest hotel so that he could give in to all those desires.
“Wait ... Carlo is your cousin?” Savian asked.
“Yes. Don’t blame me, though. I’m beginning to think that all of my dad’s family is a bit off. Merrick?”
No, he couldn’t make it to a hotel. He eyed the houses down the road. Perhaps if he offered one of the owners a sizable amount of euros ...
Merrick? What’s wrong? Why are you panting? I can feel you thinking, but you must be trying to hide your thoughts from me, because all I get is a sense of you holding something back.
He snarled soundlessly into her head, and let her see just what he was thinking.
“Glorious grasshoppers!” she said on a gasp, and lunged forward, both hands on his face, her lips burning a brand on his, enticing him, driving him insane with need, pushing him almost past the point of control.
With a superhuman effort, he managed to push her back, but took pleasure nonetheless in the fact that her eyes were dilated with desire, she was breathing raggedly, and a sexual flush had washed upward from her chest.
She was desire personified, and it would take a stronger man than him to resist her.
He didn’t. She was there in his arms again, warm and sweet and satisfying.
