“Fine,” she repeated, ungraciously. Seizing his hand, the one cradling her face, she sank her teeth into his wrist.

“Holy . . .” He hissed between bared fangs. “I could have sliced open a vein, rather than you using your dull bicuspids. Like butter knives in the mouth of a pit bull.”

Whine, whine, whine. Poor baby vampire doesn’t like pain. If you’ d used the vampire faster-than-a-speeding-bullet shit, you could have caught me in midair.

Mason narrowed his gaze at the crown of her head, thought about strangling her, though he knew she was right. He’d been too entranced by watching her and quite simply had missed his cue. He was glad she couldn’t read that out of his mind. “I’m going to start calling you Kate,” he decided. “Shrew.”

Bastard.

Letting out a sigh, he stroked a hand over her head as she drank. She stiffened at the touch, but didn’t draw away. Her irascibility was probably good, because if she let down all of her defenses, he might not hold the rein on his own control. Despite her brutal approach, having her mouth settle on his flesh so he felt the suction of her soft lips, her tongue brushing him like a feather as she drank, couldn’t help but fire his blood. It made him want to take her under him on the soft, wet sand. Not necessarily to fuck her.

No, something more devastating. Have her lie beneath his body, that incomparable intimacy of feeling the press and give of every soft curve, while he offered every hard and needy plane and angle of his. He’d kiss her mouth until she was gasping and writhing.

He knew he could. He knew she would.

“Enough, habiba,” he murmured, running a light finger under her chin. “That’s plenty.” When she lifted her face, the bemusement in her eyes was too much. He brushed his mouth over hers, but pulled back before she could do it first. At her look, he swiped the tip of his tongue over his lip. “You had blood on your mouth,” he said.

“And you can’t carry a handkerchief like most men born in the Middle Ages?” But her gaze lingered on his lips, her own pressing together. Then she extended a trembling hand toward his face.

Mason stilled, aching for the confusion in her expression as she caught a strand of his hair in between her knuckles, slowly twined her fingers in it. Exerted downward pressure.

Mason took his time leaning forward, letting her keep up her pull, holding back on her until it was more impatient, insistent, but he was torturing himself with the sight of her mouth drawing closer as well. Then he hovered above her lips, lifting his gaze to meet hers.

“I don’t know . . . ,” she said, a sheen of desperate tears in her eyes, her fight with herself.

“Yes, you do,” he said quietly, and closed that distance, taking command of her mouth, giving her the illusion of taking her choice away. He knew that was what she needed right now, when she was afraid to comprehend her own needs.

His own weren’t much easier to understand, though. He wanted to take her to this mindless place, wanted to sweep his tongue into her mouth, feel her response, the tightening of her fingers on his arm, the grip on his hair. Farida had loved his hair. He’d hacked it all off once or twice, when he thought he’d go mad with the dreamlike illusion of feeling her fingers slip through it while he slept. For nearly a century, he could hardly bear for a woman to stroke it because of the memory.

But Jessica’s touch only made him crave more. If it wouldn’t have required breaking the kiss, he would have turned his face into the slim palm, the fragile fingers. He’d only been speaking truth. He couldn’t bear her pain. The fracture of her leg bone, feeling the flash of startled pain, had nearly driven him mad. It had been all he could do to take the time to reason with her, gain her sullen capitulation, rather than forcing the blood down her throat in a way that would have healed the leg quickly, but scared her half to death with his near violence. During these few minutes it was necessary for her to stay on the ground, letting the fracture heal, he wanted every second.

Teasing her lips open even farther, he penetrated deeper, so her hand curved up around his neck, found his back and dug in. She pulled away the band holding his hair so it fell over one side of his face, and hers. When she arched up into him, the smell of her was maddening, blood pulsing in the artery so close to his nose. He settled for scoring it with his fangs, countering her surprised reaction to that by the more shocking act of cupping the heat between her legs.

She cried out, her throbbing response immediate, pulsing against his palm, insistent. Oh, habiba . . . He closed his eyes, pushing back the insistent image of stripping her naked and letting the damp sand cling to her body, the salty foam of surf merge with the scent of her cunt’s musk as he plunged into it.

No, no . . . I can’t . . .

You can. It is what you want.

Regardless, her rising panic was as inexorable as the tide behind him, and he cursed his own needs. She was no virgin, but she was as jumpy and fragile as one. Even now, she was beginning to fight him, trying to shove his hand away, wriggling.

Trapped. Please, don’t . . .

He removed his hand, but continued to hold her, compelling her to calm beneath his touch, but that black tide in her head was eradicating her rational responses. Nothing would help but freeing her completely.

With a silent oath, he forced himself to do so, sitting back on his heels. Jessica scrambled away several feet, crabbing back and showing her leg was mending. She was panting, poised to run like a rabbit. But he didn’t move.

Jessica stared at him, kneeling in the sand, his now empty hand curled tensely on his thigh as he studied her, fire simmering in his eyes. The aroused tension of his powerful body was unmistakable. He was going to move forward, take away her choices, and she couldn’t move fast enough—

“As I told you from the beginning, I am not Raithe.” Now he rose and stared down at her, not offering her a hand, not moving toward her at all. She didn’t like the chill that moved over her skin. “More than that, I will not allow you to make me into him, in order to shield yourself. If I ever take you, it will not be rape. You may count on that.” The arrogance in his voice was what brought her to her feet. While her calf twinged, he was right. The pain was almost gone. She clenched her fists nevertheless. “No one will ever take me anywhere I don’t want to go.”

“I believe that is what I just said.”

She had the urge to slap him, and might have, if it had been merely barbed banter. But the humorless regard, the set of his stern mouth, suggested she’d offended him. It didn’t make her afraid, exactly, but it did make her hesitate to push the effort. So she did the only thing she could. She bolted. Or rather, started jogging again, without him.

Mason let her go, noting with approval the leg could bear her weight, though she was treating it gingerly. She’d felt the hammering of his heart, had noted his obvious arousal, but hadn’t acknowledged her own. The scent of it was in his nostrils, strong as blood and as potent. It made him want to go after her still, take her down beneath him.

She thought he was angry with her reaction, and he was, but not with her. He needed to push past this useless fury at a vampire far beyond his reach. Raithe’s justice had been meted out at the hands of the very woman he’d wronged, but every time the fear rose in her, it closed on her with strangling hands, dulling that sharp mind and desperately defensive barbed wit. It paralyzed her, left her a desperate, mindless animal, and made him want to hurt something. Cause eternal agony to those who had hurt what belonged to him, what mattered most to him.

Closing his eyes at the thought, he shook his head. Perhaps he was as bad as Jess, merging past and present. By Allah, she messed with his mind, but whether it was for good or ill, he didn’t think it mattered. Because he wanted her, Jessica Tyson. And he hadn’t wanted a woman, for more than the release of cock or the needs of blood, in a very long time.

15

AFTER her shower and change, Jessica couldn’t sleep. Despite the late hour, she prowled the house, hoping to distract herself by exploring some of the areas she hadn’t yet. She discovered a solar ium, an odd choice for the sun-averse master of the estate.

However, remembering her conversation with Amara, she knew it wasn’t an odd choice for the female servant he’d wanted to live here with him. Farida would have loved the ocean view during sunset.

She also discovered a music room, complete with a variety of musical instruments she wondered if Mason played. Then there was his art gallery, a long corridor lined with precious pieces that occupied an hour of her time. He liked horses; that was for certain.

Desert scenes. Very few of the works depicted images of human beings, or vampires, save one. Jessica spent some time in front of an impressive oil painting showing a vampire female with vibrant jade eyes and long dark hair. She knew she was a vampire, because there was no human in the world that preternaturally beautiful. And Mason had a portrait of her.

She didn’t want to deal with the roil of feelings that thought produced, or address the hopeful, petty idea the impossibly beautiful female might be dead. So instead she moved on and found a small den. The massive wooden chair and weapons on the wall suggested it was a male retreat for some long-dead Scottish laird. There was even a fireplace to make the chamber cozy on a cold night. Over the mantel was another gorgeous horse sculpture, this one in some kind of smooth jet stone she couldn’t help but touch.

She imagined Mason in the chair, long muscular legs splayed while he read, his strands of copper hair glittering in the firelight. She’d be on the rug, leaning against his leg, gazing into the fire as his fingers stroked her hair. Her mind would drift, becoming sleepy until he found her throat, teased her face up for a kiss. He’d bring her into his lap to straddle him, take him deep inside of her in a dreamlike state, the firelight licking over their bare skin . . .

Was she deranged? More than a month ago, she was certain vampires were evil incarnate. How could one handsome vampire—

which was redundant, of course—with a veneer of civility change her mind? Had she learned nothing?

Even the way he’d said it: “If I ever take you . . .” Vampires saw themselves as dominant and superior over humans. It would never occur to them to woo or court a woman. They simply overwhelmed with force or seduction, took what they needed. Why thinking of Mason doing that could make her tremble with a sharp-edged arousal, while Raithe committing the same violation brought fear and revulsion, she didn’t care to face. That line of thinking led to peril.

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