“You.” She took the photo from him and placed it back in its spot on the shelf. “I’m going to always love Jeremy. He was my first true love. But even though it felt like it at the time, I didn’t die with him. I still have a life to live, however long it might be. And I want you in it.”
He shook his head. “I still don’t understand why.”
“Because you’re a good man, Campbell Raines. You are honorable, kind, self-sacrificing, caring.”
She wouldn’t think so highly of him if she knew everything. He should tell her, push her away for good, but he couldn’t. She moved closer.
“Not to mention sexy as hell,” she said.
That last part made him smile despite dark thoughts of the past and tug her close. “Sexy, eh?”
“Mouthwateringly so.”
He examined every inch of her face and slowly shook his head. Would he ever get enough of this woman? “I could say the same about you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“In fact, I think you’ve slept enough.” He lowered his mouth and captured hers in a hungry kiss. When she answered in kind, he’d swear his body heated from one end to the other.
She unzipped his pants. “You have on entirely too many clothes.”
He stood mesmerized as she unbuttoned them and let them drop off his hips. He slid his hands under the long T-shirt she’d put on and lifted it over her head, leaving them both naked. They didn’t make it to the bed this time. He lifted her and sat her bottom on the back of the couch. When she wrapped her legs around him and slid her tongue over his left nipple, he made a sound of painful pleasure and buried himself in her to the hilt.
“I can’t go slow.”
This time she licked his ear. “I don’t want to go slow. In fact, I want to see just how fast you can go.”
And so he showed her, holding her close and pumping so hard and fast that she gasped and let her head fall back, giving him glorious access to her breast. He sucked and pumped until he thought they might both fly apart, and then he did it some more. He felt her interior muscles tighten around him, and that sent him over the edge. She cried out with her release, and the sound of her pleasure caused his to swell as he slid in and out even faster until he too finally found release.
His legs unsteady, he rolled her backward onto the couch and draped his leg over her. There was no doubt about it anymore. Wise or not, he loved this woman, loved her with all his heart.
* * *
Olivia woke up in her bed, though she had no memory of how she got there. Before she opened her eyes, she let herself drift on the memories that came back with a heated clarity. A bird chirped somewhere nearby, heralding the dawn. She smiled in her half sleep at the beautiful sound.
And then she sat up so fast her head swam.
She ran her hand down the other side of the bed, now empty. The rest of her bedroom proved just as lacking in his presence. The fact that she was naked told her that she hadn’t just dreamed last night.
“Campbell?”
No answer.
She kicked off the covers and checked the bathroom, then the rest of her small apartment. After wrapping herself in a robe, she checked out the windows but he wasn’t anywhere visible outside either. When she turned away from the window, that was when she noticed the note propped against the vase of roses.
“You’re beautiful when you’re sleeping. I wish I could see you with the sunlight on your face.”
She covered the giddy smile that formed on her lips. No matter what they’d shared the night before, she’d never expected such lovely words from a guy like him, a man’s man. She giggled at the idea that these were words he’d also never want the other guys on his team to hear.
That was okay. She wanted them all to herself.
It was hard to think about working, but she needed to get ready before Mindy arrived. She wondered how long she’d be able to keep how she’d spent her night from her best friend.
It ended up not being an issue.
When she got downstairs and started mixing the ingredients for cherry pastries, the phone rang. Her heart started beating faster in anticipation of hearing Campbell’s voice. “Hello,” she said as she put the phone to her ear.
“Liv, I need to take the day off, maybe two,” Mindy said without preamble.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just exhausted.”
Olivia knew it was more. Mindy was reliving the horrible deaths of her mother and sister, and it was Olivia’s fault. She closed her eyes, searching for the right thing to say. Maybe it was best not to bring it up, to let Mindy deal with it in her own way.
“You deserve some time off. Get some rest. Do something fun.”
“Hey, maybe I’ll get that massage,” Mindy said a bit halfheartedly.
“Tease.”
Mindy laughed a little, but it was a shadow of her normal laughter. “You going to be okay running things on your own?”
“Yeah. Not expecting a big run on the diner.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
When Mindy hung up, Olivia felt the void where her friend should be. It grew bigger with each moment that passed in condemning silence.
* * *
Campbell stood in front of the Imperium the next night. He’d wanted so much to go back to Olivia’s, to hold her again, but he’d been summoned to the Imperium’s North American headquarters a mere two streets away from the United Nations. At least this time the reason for the meeting was of his own making.
When he climbed the stone steps to the front door, he remembered when this building had used the cover of the private residence of a reclusive billionaire. He remembered driving by when he’d been with the NYPD and wondering about the identity of its owner. He and his partner had gone back and forth guessing how the recluse had made his billions.
He’d had no idea that the owners had amassed their fortune by living for centuries.
When he stepped inside, the unease that he always felt here made a reappearance. He didn’t feel threatened, more like out of place, as he had felt at really fancy restaurants when he’d been alive. He’d been more of a takeout-pizza kind of guy.
“Officer Raines, your timing is perfect,” said the redheaded vampire at the front desk. “Representative Drogan just finished a phone call and can see you now.” The woman stood and led him down a hallway beside the stairs that led to the upper levels of the six-story building. He didn’t know what was on all the floors or in all the rooms, only that the courtroom was on the top floor.
As he entered the office the woman indicated, Charles Drogan stood and rounded his desk with a formal- looking stride. Though he’d lived through centuries, he sometimes still showed the mannerisms of King Henry VIII’s court, which was where he’d been turned.
“Ah, Raines. Good to see you.”
Campbell nodded in acknowledgment. “Representative Drogan.”
“What can I do for you today?”
“I’ve been trying without success to make contact with the NYPD on a matter. I’d like your help in making them listen. Perhaps if a request came from the Imperium—”
“What is this matter?”
Campbell hid his annoyance at being interrupted. People doing that had always irked him, as if they were indicating what they had to say was more important than what he’d been in the middle of saying.
“Protection for a woman.”
“A human woman?”
“Yes. She’s a target of whoever is behind these abductions.”
“All humans could be their targets.”
“Yes, but she’s escaped two attempted abductions already.”
