Maggie definitely had a reflection. Vampires slept by day ...

Ha! She walked the streets by day.

Vampires slept in coffins. He’d slept with her often enough; he knew damned well she didn’t sleep in a coffin.

Unless ...

He got down on his hands and knees, and looked under the bed.

He couldn’t help it.

Yet Maggie chose just then to emerge from the shower, catching him redhanded. He sensed her presence as she stood behind him.

“What in hell are you doing?” she demanded.

He straightened, letting the bed skirt fall, rising and taking a seat on the bed. He stared back at her.

Hard. Then he shrugged. Something wasn’t quite right. Time to get it in the open. Time to find out what?

“Looking for dirt,” he said flatly.

She stood very still, apparently realizing exactly what he was about. She arched a brow regally, mockingly. “Why not a coffin?”

“Do you have a coffin?” he asked, rising, folding his arms over his chest as he faced her.

“No. Do you?” He didn’t answer, he kept staring at her. She exhaled slowly. “We’ve slept together.

You know damned well I don’t sleep in a coffin.”

He nodded after a moment. “Do you know, Maggie, my dad is always throwing little bits of intriguing historical trivia at me. Here’s one for you. There’s a curious reason our ancestors started using headstones in graveyards. Do you know what it is?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” she said very softly. She stood elegantly tall and straight, wearing a soft white silk gown that emphasized the beauty and perfection of her body and the deep fire-red of her hair.

“Well, in countries throughout Europe—and beyond, I’m certain—there have long been superstitions regarding the dead. A heavy stone on the head could keep a corpse from rising.”

“I don’t have a headstone, Lieutenant,” she assured him. The tone of her voice made him feel like a fool.

He shook his head, sinking back down to the bed. God, he was losing his mind. She was flesh and blood, a living, breathing woman. And he was a cop! For the love of God, he was a cop. He didn’t believe in the supernatural, in ghosts, zombies, hobgobblins ...

Or vampires.

She walked across the room to him. Her white silk gown fluttered about the perfect formation of her body. The nightgown was soft gauze, completely see-through. Her breasts rose high, round and firm, her nipples were hard, enticingly large, and the dark shadow of the triangle between her thighs was hauntingly inviting. She stroked his cheek, lifting his chin, and he met her eyes.

“Do you think I’m a vampire?” she asked him.

“No, don’t be absurd,” he told her. On the one hand, it was the truth. On the other ...

Was it an awful lie?

With a soft whisper of silk, she moved away from him. He was torn between the sway of her firm buttocks beneath the telltale silk and a longing to hear her talk, to emphatically deny that anything at all was different about her.

She took a seat in a high-back chair across the room, by the fireplace. The windows were closed and tightly locked, but a blast from an air-conditioning vent drifted by her, lifting her hair and the gauzy material around her. She curled her feet beneath her and sat hugging her legs to her chest. She seemed even more alluring. He was a madman, searching around her bed when they were in the middle of forming a tenuous relationship.

She exhaled. “Sean, I warned you not to get involved with me.” He couldn’t be a madman. He loved her; he couldn’t lose her.

He rose, going to her. “You could warn me from here to eternity. It wouldn’t matter. I’m in love with you, Maggie.”

“The truth is,” she whispered, “that you barely know me.”

“You’re wrong. I feel I’ve known you forever. As if you’re a part of me. Like living, like breathing.

You’re in my blood.”

“Really?” she whispered.

He reached down for her hand, drawing her up against him. He held her tightly to him. Her flesh seemed on fire beneath the silk. He rubbed his hands down her back, over her buttocks, pressing her tightly against his arousal, growing hard against the restriction of his pants. She smelled sweetly of her soap. He nuzzled her neck, feeling the urgency of desire she awakened spiraling within him. He kissed her lips lightly, then the length of her throat. She stood pliant in his arms. He kissed her earlobe, the hollow of her collarbone. He buried his face between her breasts, then took a nipple into his mouth, bathing it through the fine white silk, sucking until the rouge peak pebbled to a hard point and he heard the sharp intake of her breath. Her body arched to his. He dropped slowly to his knees, mouthing her flesh, teasing it with his tongue. He slid a hand beneath the hem of her gown, between her legs. He pressed his thumb deep into her, pressed her closer to his face, bathing her intimately through the silk while he rotated his thumb deeply, erotically.

Her fingers knotted into his shoulders. She stiffened, arched, nearly raked the flesh from his shoulders through his shirt. She climaxed with a gasping breath, slumping against him as if she would fall. He stood, sweeping her up into his arms.

And not knowing why, but not giving a damn, he carried her to the stairway. He didn’t bother to shed his own clothing, but came down upon her in an agony of desire, and made love to her there. When it was over, he lifted her, and carried her back to her bed, stripped at last, and lay down beside her.

Smiling, she turned to him. “What was that all about?”

“I don’t know.”

“I thought you were really angry with me.”

“I was. I am. And if you ever do anything so recklessly foolish again, I swear I’ll take a paddle to you like a child.”

She didn’t reply. He rolled over then, straddling her.

“Promise me that you won’t.”

“Sean, tonight was sheer accident. Things just happened.”

“Like this Lucian fellow arriving.”

She shrugged. “I knew he was in town. He had stopped by to say hello. And we are old friends.”

“Yeah, right. So tell me—is it really over?”

“Is what really over?”

“Whatever you had going with this Lucian fellow.”

“It was never serious.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

She blinked. “It’s really over.”

Staring down at her, he felt a forceful shudder tear through his body. He’d never known a need like this, such fierce desire.

Her eyes met his, gold-flecked, exotic. Her hair spilled around her naked shoulders. He looked at her, and wanted her again.

He leaned lower, taking his weight off her, but leaving a leg lying over her. Her fingers trailed over his shoulder and she inched lower against him. She took his sex into her hands, instantly causing it to spring back to attention.

“It better really be over,” he said. Tough guy. Yeah, sure. What could he do?

She smiled. “Oh?”

“We’ve been playing around rather carelessly here. We have to get married.” Her smiled faded. “Sean?”

“Umm?”

“That’s one of the reasons you shouldn’t love me. I—I can’t have children.” The look on her face captured his heart. He drew her closer to him.

“Then we won’t have children,” he said softly.

“You want children.”

“I want you.”

“But—”

“We can always adopt if we both choose. Doesn’t matter. I love you. Nothing means anything without you.”

“Sean—”

“Still ... don’t stop what you were doing.”

She managed a smile again. Then she eased down against his body, taking him in her mouth.

Sometime in the night, they slept.

Despite the fact that he was deeply in love, Sean awoke with a terrible weight of responsibility hanging over him.

The killer was still out there. Growing more bold; growing more dangerous.

His eyes half closed, he watched as Maggie awoke. She, too, seemed to wake with a heavy heart despite the night they had shared.

She sat up, staring out at the morning sun through a slit in the drapes, watching as it slowly began climbing higher in the sky. Apparently, she knew he was awake, and she was aware he was watching her.

“Sean?” she said softly.

“Yes?”

“I am a vampire,” she told him quietly.

CHAPTER 14

“What?” Sean demanded. By morning’s light, his suspicions seemed ridiculous. Her words were absurd.

She nodded, looking at him. “It’s the truth.”

He smiled, feeling that, by day, the whole thing was foolish. “No coffin, Maggie, I looked. No dirt in your bed. You have a reflection, you eat and drink normal food, and you don’t burn up in the sunlight.” She didn’t laugh. “We aren’t destroyed by sunlight, we’re simply weaker during the day. Our greatest strength comes at dusk. I don’t need a coffin, Sean, and I have a lot of human tendencies because ...”

“No, don’t tell me!” He sat up at her side, smiling, willing to play along. “I know the story. You have human tendencies because you’re only half vampire, you’re the child of Magdalena and her vampire lover, and so you’re a mixed breed? Kind of like a mulatto or a half-breed Indian?” She stared at him seriously in return.

“I don’t need a coffin because ... we don’t really need coffins. They’re just dark and comfortable.

Besides, I don’t seem to have as many weaknesses as some vampires because ... because my father gave me blood before I passed into darkness. He had friends who were familiar with vampires, and I think that somehow he kept me from actually dying and coming back, the way it is with most. Think about it, why should it have to be a coffin for any vampire? People choose to sleep in different ways, beds, futons ... any place of rest is fine for vampires. What is a coffin but a box? Secluded, protected.