Hearts In Darkness

to keep from exploding.

'Again,' he demanded, thrusting hard, wanting, needing, every ounce from her.

Her litany ran over him, through him, exploding glorious heat through their minds. 'And I,' he vowed, 'will love you for eternity and never leave you.'

Her climax sent him spiralling beyond control and into bliss.

* * *

'I,' she said, sometime later, 'have no energy to move. I think I'll sleep right here in these bubbles.'

'Your skin will wrinkle like a prune. Not a good look, let me assure you.' He climbed out of the spa and quickly dried himself. 'Up, woman. Bed is where you belong right now.'

'My legs have no bones.'

He grinned. 'Good loving can do that to you.'

'That wasn't good. That was amazing . I've never…' she hesitated and licked her lips. For an instant, she looked like a teenager just discovering the wonders of sex. 'Let's just say that it has never been that good for me.'

'Then it was a first for us both.' He wrapped the towel around his waist, then leaned over the side of the hot tub and grabbed her lax arm, tugging her toward the edge.

She raised her eyebrows and made no move to get out. 'I find that hard to believe. In three hundred and eighty years you must have had some good sex.'

He forced a note of severity into his voice. 'Three hundred and sixty, not three hundred and eighty, thank you very much.'

Her grin widened. 'What's twenty years when you're that old? And you didn't answer my question.'

'I have had good sex. But I've never had sex that could so completely blow my mind as well as my body. Amazing, as you said.'

She studied him for a second, her eyes amber slits of contentment. 'What about Elizabeth?'

If she at all worried that Elizabeth might yet usurp her position in his heart, then it didn't show—in her voice or her thoughts. Still, he owed her the truth.

He sat down on the edge of the spa and tucked the wet strands of her hair behind her ear. 'I gave up life to follow Elizabeth. She was my world—all I wanted at the time, and all I thought I would ever want.'

Nikki frowned and looked away. He caught her chin, gently forcing her to look at him again. 'But she never was, and could never be, what you are to me. You complete me, Nikki. She never could.'

Her smile filled his heart and mind and stirred to life the embers of passion. 'I really do love you.'

He leaned forward, kissing her sweet lips. 'Good. Now get your ass out of that water.'

She sighed and struggled upright. He helped her out, then towelled her dry. Ignoring the rising desire to touch her more fully, he guided her into the bedroom and tucked her into bed.

'Wouldn't like to join me?' she murmured, patting the sheets next to her.

He would have liked nothing more, but there were things he had to do first. Like contact Seline. 'I thought you had no bones? I can't make love to a boneless woman.'

Her gaze flicked down his body and she grinned. 'Parts of your body are refuting that statement.'

'Parts of my body have a will of their own. Sleep Nikki. I have to contact Seline and see if she has found any information on Cordell.'

'Which reminds me—I thought you said vampires could heal just about any wound inflicted on them?'

He frowned slightly. 'We can. Why?'

'Cordell's in a wheelchair. I saw it when I was in Matthew's memories.'

'That doesn't make much sense.' Even if Cordell had broken his back at some stage, his vampire healing capacity should have fixed the wound within weeks. Unless… it must have happened before he became a vampire. As you were in life, you are in un life. If Cordell was crippled in some way before he became a vampire, he would have remained that way.

She shrugged. 'I'm just reporting what I saw. Cordell was using Matthew to set up a series of electronic cash transactions.'

'He's getting ready to pull out.'

'It sounds like it. Though I can't understand why he'd bother transferring all this money to a charity organization in the first place if all he wanted to do was steal it himself. Why not just transfer it straight into is own accounts?'

He shrugged. 'Seline said the charity looked legit. Maybe he needed to keep it that way until he'd hit all his targets and was ready to flee.' He bent down and kissed her forehead. 'You sleep. I have work to do.'

'Don't be long,' she murmured, closing her eyes.

She was asleep by the time he'd settled on the day bed. Smiling, he relaxed his mind and opened the lines of communication. Contact was instant. Seline had obviously been waiting for him.

Found lots of information on your Randolf Cordell,she said. He's not a very pleasant type.

If he was, we probably wouldn't be hunting him, would we?

Well, no, I guess not.Her smile ran down the line. His parents died when he was eight. Cordell was shuffled between in-laws, none of whom really wanted him. The streets became his home. By the time he was thirteen he'd been up before the courts on several counts of assaults and robbery.

When he was seventeen, he got involved in a car stealing racket but during one theft was involved in an accident, and the injury left him a paraplegic. He sued the driver for damages but lost the case. He then attempted to kill the driver, but was caught and charged, and spent the next ten years behind bars. Apparently, he was not a model prisoner.

A charmer, all right. It was odd how differently people coped with their situations. Nikki had also made the streets her home after her parents had died. Yet she'd managed to escape with both her integrity and her humanity relatively intact. Let me guess. The man who hit him was one of his first kidnap victims.

Clever boy. William Parnell was actually one of the four major investors in a high-flying brokerage company. The other three men provided alibis for Parnell in the court case.

Victims two, three and four?

Yes. I would guess that by the time Cordell got around to penalizing the fourth man, Robert Carson, he'd gained quite a taste for kidnapping and easy money.

He frowned. Cordell doesn't seem the type to be happy with siphoning money from their accounts.

Especially as a means of revenge.

These four are the types who think money is all-conquering. Cordell never had a hope in the court case, given his record and the fact the car he was driving was stolen, but he never saw it that way. What he saw was big fancy lawyers and lots of cash burying the truth. I'm guessing he wanted that power, and that he wanted to take it away from them.

Do we know when he was turned?

Not exactly. He disappeared for several years after his ten-year stint in jail. The next mention I found was in a journal of an old witch—you remember a woman called Ladonna doing the fairground circuit some ten years back?

Vaguely.He wasn't into fairground mysticism—it was one of the few things he hadn't done through the years. She was a shyster, wasn't she?

No, she was very much the real thing, even though her act stunk to high heaven.

He smiled. The sort of thing that gives witches a bad name, huh?

Exactly.She sniffed. Anyway, Cordell apparently joined her act, and they became quite a team. In her journal, Ladonna states that she had apprenticed Cordell and intended teaching him the art.

Seline's tone told him she wasn't impressed. I gather Ladonna followed the dark path?

Yes. I warned her many years ago it would lead to her death, but power was all she could see, all she was interested in. Fool.

I think you've lost me. Why would teaching Cordell have cost Ladonna her life? Beside the fact that

Cordell is a murderous creep, that is.