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The captivating woman from the night before.
As he moved to the edge of the dance floor, he finally had a moment to see all of her. All mouthwatering woman in a sexy red dress that displayed her lusciously curved body. A petite body, he realized as he neared.
Up until then, there had been something so larger-than-life about her that he hadn’t appreciated that she barely reached midchest.
He walked the few steps until he stood before her, tilting his head down to meet her inquiring gaze. A deep, almost fathomless gaze, and this close, he confirmed his earlier suspicions that she looked totally like the demon in his dreams. That realization was so powerful that he almost reeled back as if struck, but somehow he controlled his reaction.
Her gaze narrowed and skipped across his face before the ghost of a smile came to her lips.
“Do we know each other?” she said, but a bright stain of color erupted on her face, and she shook her head and looked away.
He didn’t know what to expect from his demon’s doppelgänger. Certainly not such embarrassed femininity that was so at odds with the attitude he had witnessed from the vampire in his dreams and on the night he had almost died.
But then he reminded himself that one was a figment of his imagination while the woman standing before him …
The woman before him was real and sexy and not a monster.
Almost as if to verify that, he touched her, tucking his index finger beneath her chin, but as he did so, a jolt of preternatural power surged through his body, making him pull back.
She lifted her head then. Slowly. Regally, as if his simple touch had somehow violated her rank or station in life. The earlier blush vanished and hardness crept onto her features.
“Do we know each other?” she asked once again, and this time her voice held a determined note of command.
A stain of power difficult to ignore.
“I’m not sure,” he answered honestly, uncertain of whether or not meeting in his dreams would count. He was sure that she couldn’t be the vampire he had met on the night he had almost died.
The answer seemed to satisfy her, since she gave a quick dip of her head. With a flick of her wrist, she sent a very obvious suggestion to her young date to disappear, which he did, scurrying away like a whipped dog.
Alex watched the young man leave and said, “Harsh.”
The end Stacia had envisioned for her date later that night was far more callous, but she contained that reply and instead said, “Would you like to dance?”
She surprised herself by asking. By the lame way she had responded to him, stammering and tossing out the most inane of questions in much the same way she had been approached hundreds of times during her long life.
And then there had been that simple touch of his hand on her chin …
His touch had reached deep into her core. As if a connection had existed between them in some other time or life. Unlikely that there was a tie, but the depth of her response was unusual.
Men rarely affected her so. Maybe “never affected her so” might have been more accurate.
Since her fateful engagement to Cassius, she had closed herself off to the wiles of men. But there was something about this man that was both familiar and demanding.
“I’d love to dance,” he finally said.
Without further prompting, he took a step closer to her, began to shift to the music. Moving his body to the pulsing beats, he teased her with an occasional brush of his body until she had to have more. She eliminated the distance between them, pressing against him. Delighting in all his hard muscle and the beat of his heart. Inhaling his enticing masculine scent.
She buried her head against the gap of skin exposed by the V of his shirt to savor that scent. Took a quick lick of his skin because she needed it, as if she’d had a bite of him in the past and been denied sustenance for too long.
As the taste of him registered, vivid images came to her of where she had seen him before, lying nearly dead in an abandoned Manhattan apartment. How they were bound to each other.
His blood.
His sweat.
The tears dashing down his face as he believed that his beloved Diana was dying. That he was dying.
Only he wasn’t dead, and neither was Diana.
He had survived that fateful night in New York. The night she had given him her vampire kiss and provided the possibility of surviving what should have been mortal wounds.
She sucked in a breath and jerked away, shocked by the insight. Losing her normally unflappable restraint over the power that allowed her thoughts, her visions, to wash over him.
He stiffened beside her as the turbulence from her mind bathed him in her memories. Shaking his head as if by doing so he could free himself of their dominion, he then relented and met her gaze.
“It wasn’t just a nightmare,” he said.
Stacia reined in her emotions, wrenching back the memory of that night. The taste of his blood and sweat. The too-human tears that she had thought she no longer could shed and the love for another that had been visible on his face even as he lay dying.
No, not dying, she cautioned herself and forced a wave of her vampire power to control him and curb his emotions, but surprisingly, she sensed him pushing back. Fighting her dominion.
“I want to know the truth,” he said, daring to place a hand at her waist once more.
“No, you don’t,” she said, finding herself in a rare situation. Those conjoined memories involved caring beyond which she was capable of either understanding or giving.
“I need to know,” he repeated, the strength of his conviction strong.
So powerful that it challenged her rule over him.
She wasn’t used to being defied. Only the most powerful of vampires would dare, and those who had done so in the past had usually ended up dead, but she didn’t want to waste this intriguing man.
At least, not just yet.
Leaning close, she allowed the tips of her breasts to brush against his chest and got on tiptoe until her lips were barely an inch from his.
“You want to know?” she said and released only a scintilla of her elder power, rousing desire in him in order to both punish his disobedience and entice him into cooperating.
A shudder worked across his body at her actions and awakened a sharp arousal. His erection pressed into her belly, and he wrapped an arm around her waist, bent and whispered into her ear, “What are you doing to me?”
“You wanted to know so stop fighting this. Allow yourself to enjoy it,” she said against the side of his face, slipping her hands through his short-cropped hair. Enjoying the sleekness of the strands on her fingers.
“Enjoy it? Do all your men enjoy it?” Alex cupped her buttocks and pressed her ever tighter, caught up in the spell of her power. Groaning as she moved her hips back and forth across his erection, but even as he did so, he battled the need pulling at him. Fought against her control.
It wasn’t real, he told himself.
She wasn’t real. She was a demon. A vampire. Or maybe he was crazy. Maybe he was insane, because vampires did not exist.
“This is empty. Dead,” he said and yanked away from her, clearly surprising her as the power holding him in its grasp vanished like a soap bubble in the wind.
She stared at him, her face reflecting a myriad of emotions.
Bewilderment.
Anger.
Yearning.
The last startled him, but he masked his own turbulent feelings as she asked, “Who are you?”
“Alex Garcia,” he said, so befuddled by her that he failed to provide the alias he used when on assignment. He cautiously held his hand out in introduction, almost afraid of touching her once again.
She glanced at his hand, seemingly as wary, then finally took hold as she replied, “Stacia.”
“Stacia. No last name?”
She shook her head. “No last name.”
“Like Madonna and Cher. Very eighties of you,” he said, dragging up some humor in the hopes of dispelling the rather uncomfortable moment they were sharing.
She chuckled at his jest and shook her head, then glanced up at him, obviously intrigued. Just as he was fascinated on various levels: the dying agent who had imagined the demon’s kiss and needed to know the truth about that night and the man who crazily found her infinitely beautiful and sexy.
“Would you like to go somewhere more quiet? Somewhere we can talk?”
A hesitant but beguiling smile came to her lips. “I’d like that very much.”
Chapter 5
The shop—an eclectic hole-in-the-wall offering tapas, wine, coffee and pastries—was a short walk away from Lincoln Drive on the fringe of Española Way.
They had been silent as they strolled toward the historic district. His hand rode at the small of her back. The pressure of it was light, although she felt it as strongly as if she were chained to him.
At the shop he held the door for her and she entered. With a quick greeting to the waiter, Alex ushered her toward a table for two at the back, close to a brick wall and beside the plate-glass windows that made up the exterior wall of the establishment. He offered her the seat where her back would be exposed, not that it mattered to her. With her powers she could sense danger coming.
It clearly made a difference to him, she thought, watching as he eased into the chair opposite her with the wall at his back.
“You come here often?” Before he could answer, a waiter approached and offered them menus, then left.
“I meet my clients here on occasion,” he said, and was about to pick up the menu but paused and narrowed his gaze. “If I’m willing to accept that you’re a vam—”
“I am even though I sense you still do not truly believe,” Stacia replied, able to read the doubts swirling in his mind. Although she didn’t know why, she wanted to shock him. Shake away the seeming calm he was exhibiting outwardly. “I eat food on occasion. People a lot more frequently.”
His color paled a bit beneath the olive tones of his skin, but other than that, there was nothing to give away his reaction. “Do you mind if I choose, then? The food, that is.”
Stacia chuckled, admiring his bravado. In other circumstances, she would understand that real bravery didn’t rest beneath the surface, but in his case she knew differently. He was a man who didn’t run from danger, which could explain his reaction to her.
“Please do while I scope out a possible dessert,” she said, coquettishly glancing around the room, wishing to provoke his calm about her vampire state.
Alex had no doubt she was seriously trying to discomfit him, but he refused to buy into her game. He had already had a taste of the unusual and inexplicable power of which she seemed capable, so her actions now were more like those of a cat toying with a mouse.
He didn’t much care for her games.
Still, he remained captivated while recognizing that such attraction might not necessarily be good for him. Even if he refused to believe that she was a vampire, he couldn’t deny that she seemed to possess powers he could not immediately explain.
After the waiter returned to the table, Alex placed an order for some cheeses, an assortment of tapas and a bottle of red wine. The wine arrived well before the food, and after the waiter poured it, Stacia picked up her glass and offered a toast.
“To friends in common,” she said, before taking a sip.
Alex swigged down a healthy amount and nodded. “I’m assuming you mean Diana and Ryder.”
“I do, but Diana was more than a friend to you, wasn’t she?”
Alex met her gaze full-on and answered truthfully because he sensed that she would be able discern a lie. “We were lovers back in college. And you?”
“Not lovers yet, but I keep trying,” she said with a wicked grin that created havoc with his innards and had him chuckling at her cojones. He’d always had a thing for women with brass.
“So why are you here in Miami, then? Manhattan seems like a better location to accomplish that objective.”
She made a moue with her mouth, swirled the wine around and averted her gaze by developing an intense interest in the fingers of ruby-red wine along the edges of the glass. “Diana and Ryder aren’t the kind for threesomes. Besides, things got … tedious in New York.”
Tedious? he wondered. The last word he would use to describe anything involving Diana Reyes, his FBI agent ex-lover, was tedious. It made him wonder what had really driven Stacia from Manhattan. Something radical, if he accepted that she was a vampire of intense power. Not that he did.
He was about to press her on the comment, but the waiter returned with their order and placed the various tapas in the center of the table. Alex invited Stacia to sample the dishes, but she demurred.
“You first, please. It’s really not what satisfies an elder like me,” she admitted, even while taking another sip of the wine, which had him wondering if vampires could get drunk. Of course, that had him wondering why he was even considering such a thing as the existence of vampires.
“Was it you that night? In New York?” he asked, deciding to press for anything more concrete to substantiate her claims and satisfy his own desire to find out what had really happened that night.
His hand was resting on the tabletop, and she covered it with hers and softly said, “What do you think?”
Before he could answer, another rush of unnatural power swept over him, filling his body with need and his brain with images—vivid, almost-real memories of that night.
Her memories.
He sucked in a breath, battling the visions. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck from the effort until she whispered softly and her words echoed in his head.
Let me in, Alex. Don’t fight it. Let me in.
He relented. The rush of her thoughts pummeled his mind, invading it, but her emotions rushed in, as well.
Her rage as she entered the room and viewed the carnage. The two dead CDA members on the ground. He and Diana both near death from their wounds.
She was angry because, as an immortal, she understood the value of life, maybe more so than those with a finite existence.
As she knelt before him, his tears yanked pity from her. Pity at his pain as he contemplated that his ex-lover might be dying, coupled with his own regret at what might have been. At the life he would not have.
But then another sentiment overwhelmed those human emotions—the hunger to feed as she leaned close and tasted him.
Suddenly, that emotion evaporated, chased away by unexpected reactions: sorrow and need.
He sensed her despair mingled with a long-denied desire for love.
Her sharp gasp at his discovery broke the mental connection she had established.
As their gazes met, he realized that she had allowed him to see more than she had wanted to reveal. That she had exposed a piece of herself she had probably kept sheltered from others for quite a long time. Maybe she had even kept those emotions buried deep within herself because to acknowledge them was dangerous.
In her gaze he saw what she expected him to do with that revelation—that he use that vulnerability against her. Maybe even abuse that unintended admission, it occurred to him, sensing that beneath her bluster she had suffered in her life. That she wasn’t as all-powerful as she wished for him to believe.
But he also sensed that, despite the hardship, she had somehow survived and possessed great mental fortitude.
Her strength proved even more enticing to him than her attractive physical shell. Because of that, he would not abuse the weakness she had exposed to him. Gently he took her hand into his and softly said, “Thank you.”
“Thank you?” she repeated, clearly shocked by his actions.
“Yes, thank you. Since that night I’ve doubted my sanity at times. I’ve relived every minute through nightmares. More often than was good. And I’ve suffered as I wondered if I was losing my mind,” he confessed, offering her his own weaknesses.
Would she abuse that disclosure or provide him yet another reason to be interested in her? he wondered.
“There are scarier things than dreams that can come to you at night,” she said, with-drawing her hand from his, clearly unused to such gentleness or gratitude.
“Like you?” he challenged, arching one brow as he took another sip of his wine.
His comment dragged a devilish smile to her full lips.
“You should be afraid of me,” she said, but it was almost as if she was trying to remind herself of what she was since whatever connection had occurred between them had somehow lessened her scariness factor.
“I’ll try to remember that,” he joked, earning a broadening of her smile.
She had a beautiful one, but he somehow knew it didn’t come easily. It didn’t fit the persona she preferred to show to the world. A persona she had likely adopted to protect herself from the earlier hurt she had inadvertently revealed to him.
But the smile fit this human persona she was showing him quite nicely.
Picking up a piece of cheese and topping it with a paper-thin slice of serrano ham, he brought it to her lips. Seemingly understanding that he wasn’t going to press further about the fateful night of their first meeting, she opened her mouth and accepted his offering, but as she did so, she playfully bit his thumb and said, “Tasty.”
He grinned, and when she mimicked his actions, presenting him with a bite of cheese and ham, he grasped her hand and accepted the food. Licked the tip of her index finger before sucking it into his mouth.
“Tastier,” he said, playing her game.
Stacia barely controlled the shiver that worked through her body and the painful need his actions roused.
“Why are you doing this?” She was confused by what he thought he would accomplish, as well as sensing this was one human who was going to be quite difficult to control.
“Because I don’t believe in monsters or things that go bump in the night.”
He was testing her, not that she would be stupid enough to morph into her demon in so public a place.
“Maybe when we finish, we should go somewhere private so I can eliminate any doubts you might have.”
“Maybe” was all he said as he picked up an olive and popped it into his mouth. Followed that up with a piece of bread and cheese before he said, “What were you doing tonight at the Widget?”
“Seasoning a prospective meal,” she answered honestly, needing to create distance between them because she was feeling too exposed. “What were you doing there?”
Alex sipped his wine. “Looking for a man.”
“You didn’t strike me as a switch-hitter.” Stacia chuckled and then took an olive from the assorted tapas on the table and popped it into her mouth.
After a hearty laugh, Alex leaned closer and said, “The man might have a connection to a friend’s missing daughter.”
So he had been on the job, she thought, wondering what he did here in Miami. Whether it was the same kind of work that had nearly gotten him killed in New York. Realizing that discretion was necessary as long as they were in public, she also shifted closer and asked as softly as she could, “Is it part of your assignment here?”
“It’s part of what I do.” The silence that followed those few words confirmed to her that there was little else he could say without compromising his position. Because she didn’t want the night to end since she was enjoying his presence, she asked, “Did you grow up in Miami?”
“Born and raised, although my parents came here from Cuba.”
“Ah, Cuba. It was a beautiful place the last time I visited.” She didn’t add that her visit had been in the 1600s, but somehow he understood not to ask.
“And you? Where were you—”
“Lived and died in Rome,” she immediately answered, hardening his earlier smile into a tight, thin line.
“If I believe what all logic says, I shouldn’t—”
“Believe,” she urged, understanding his conflict and the angst it brought him in his nightmares. Believing was a first step to dealing with all that upset and accepting the truth about what she was.
About what had really happened that night. Maybe then he could drive those bad dreams from his mind.
“If I believe what you say as true, then I guess it would seem right to ask how old you were when … you know, when it happened?”
“It” being her turning, she assumed. Her death as a human and resurrection as a vampire. But it had been quite a long time since she had told that tale and she wasn’t quite ready to repeat it tonight. Especially not to him. He had already touched parts of her psyche that had been closely guarded for centuries.
“That’s a long story that I think would be better told at some other time.”
Alex appeared to accept her reluctance and backed away. “Some other time, then,” he said and motioned to the tapas remaining on the table. “Would you like a bit more? If not, I’ll walk you home.”
She shook her head. “That gallant gesture is wasted on me. I’m more than capable—”
“Of protecting yourself. I’m sure you are, but a gentleman always walks a lady home.”
Since it seemed clear she wanted no further sustenance from the goodies he had ordered, he tossed some bills on the table and rose, offering her his arm.
To his surprise—and hers—she accepted it.
Chapter 6
Bright and early the next morning, Alex was at his desk, perusing the inches-thick file with information the DEA had gathered over the years on the activities in the Widget.
Unfortunately, even with all their information, they had been unable to take any kind of action against the owners of the club or any of the suspects involved in the criminal activities at the location.
And what a smorgasbord of illegal activities, he thought as he flipped through the reports.
Drugs. Illegal gambling. Prostitution and a number of missing women who had been known to frequent the Widget.
The last brought him upright in his chair. Maybe the suspects at the club were involved in more than just providing favors. Maybe they were also luring young girls into the business or even selling them, either of which could account for Andrea McAnn’s alleged disappearance at the club. But of all the missing women, only Andrea had last been seen in the Widget. The others had apparently disappeared from a few of the nearby clubs.
“You seem incredibly absorbed in that file, Garcia,” said Carlos Orendain, the head of his department, as he exited his office.
Orendain sauntered to Alex’s workstation, thick forearms crossed against the even more muscular expanse of his chest. Since his chief barely topped five foot seven and his head seemed to rest immediately on his shoulders, all the muscle made him look like a squat fireplug.
Alex tossed the papers he had been reading onto his desk and leaned back in his chair, seemingly nonchalant. Orendain had a tendency to be controlling with his agents and their cases. He would never approve of Alex deciding to investigate the club unless it appeared as if Orendain had made the decision. With that in mind, he said, “The Widget seems like an interesting place, Chief. Lots going on there.”
“Is that why you paid a visit last night?” Orendain countered.
He hid his surprise by chuckling and shaking his head. “Hell, no. I met a woman the other day and was hoping to run into her again.”
And this morning he had been busy contemplating what he would do about Stacia and her claims that she was a vampire. Claims reinforced by his dreams and the scattered memories of the night he had almost died. But then again, he had been in such pain, physically and emotionally, his mind scattered from the loss of blood, that he still didn’t know whether or not to believe what he thought he had seen. The fact that Stacia’s claims could be true somehow didn’t wipe out his fascination about her based on what little personal nuggets he had gleaned from their meeting.