Blake's Pursuit (9 page)

His cock ached now, desperate to plunge into her heat and find release. He let his hands roam over her body, exploring her luscious curves, caressing her, seducing her. Yes, he knew what he was doing. Using her vulnerability to get what he wanted: a taste of this beautiful and brave woman. He should be ashamed of himself for giving into his baser needs and stop this madness now. He’d brought her to his house to protect her, not to maul her like a hungry animal. But his cock cared nothing about that. Didn’t know what honor was. Only wanted to feel her. To be with her.

And she did nothing to stop him. There was no resistance. He didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping this, of doing the honorable thing and letting her go to bed—alone. All he could think about was how to maneuver her upstairs to his bedroom where they could continue this folly with some privacy. Where he could strip off her clothes and feast his eyes on her, while he brought her to ecstasy.

But he knew that wouldn’t be enough. Even finding release inside her wouldn’t suffice. No, he knew with a certainty he’d never felt before that only when he tasted Lilo’s blood would he be truly satisfied. Sated. Happy.

But this would mean exposing himself. Showing her who he was. What he was. How would she react? Would she still rub her sexy body against him and allow him to touch her? Would she still want to touch him? The way she touched him now? With her warm fingers sliding underneath his shirt, her fingernails clawing at his back, while he tunneled underneath her top and touched the smooth skin of her abdomen? He slid higher, slowly, gently, waiting for her to stop him. But no protest came from her lips, lips that were busy devouring him.

Only a few more inches and his hands would be on her breasts, cradling those perfect globes in his palms, teasing those nipples with his fingers...

“Blake, luvvie, are you h—?”

Blake spun around, breathing heavily, glaring at the person coming through the front door.

“Rose?” He ran a shaky hand through his hair. Fuck! It
would
be his 4th great-grandmother, walking in on him practically fucking Lilo in the hallway. Just fucking perfect! “I thought you were in Carmel…”

Rose looked past him. “Oh…”

From the corner of his eye he saw Lilo nervously rearranging her clothing. “I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked. She looked at Rose, then back at him. “I need to go.” She dashed past him to the stairs, running up to the second floor.

“Lilo!”

But she didn’t stop.

“I guess I came at a bad time,” Rose said.

“You could say that.”

12

How could she have been so stupid?

Lilo shut the door to the guestroom behind her and lifted her suitcase onto the bed. She rushed into the en-suite bathroom, and grabbed the few things she’d unpacked earlier, tossing them back into the suitcase.

Blake had a girlfriend! His stunned words had confirmed as much.
I thought you were in Carmel
. Apparently he hadn’t expected her home this early. So he’d thought he could mess around while his girlfriend was out of town. Damn it! He was just as bad as every other man. Only Morgan West wasn’t like that, because she’d written him differently: at least Morgan never committed to one woman and let his various bedmates know that he wasn’t exclusive. He didn’t lie.

Well, technically Blake hadn’t lied, he’d simply
forgotten
to tell her that he had a girlfriend. A very beautiful one at that. She looked no older than twenty-five and was as stunning as any model. Blonde, petite, delicate features. And a British accent. Clearly, Blake went for blondes. Maybe a few days without his girlfriend had made him randy. Maybe he’d needed to get a fix from another blonde, and she’d been the willing victim.

How could she have let herself go like that? She’d been about to undress him, throwing all caution to the wind. A few more minutes and she would have been sleeping with a complete stranger, a man she knew nothing about. A man who was cheating on his girlfriend.

A knock at the door made her stiffen.

“Lilo, please, we have to talk.”

She scoffed. She had nothing to say to him. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving. Tell your girlfriend—”

The door opened, making her spin around. Blake stood there, his eyes immediately darting past her to the suitcase on the bed, his surprise evident.

“You can’t leave.” He marched into the room and closed the door behind him.

Instinctively she took a step back, the back of her legs bumping against the bed. “Please tell her I’m sorry. If I had known…”

“You think Rose is my girlfriend?”

“She shows up here at five in the morning and calls you luvvie.”

Blake had the audacity to chuckle. “Rose is English. She calls everybody luvvie. Or dear.”

“Please don’t make any excuses. It’s embarrassing enough. I shouldn’t have kissed you…”

He shook his head, a smile on his lips. “There was nothing wrong with what we did. I wanted it as much as you did. And more. I still do.”

At his last words, she shivered. “Stop!” She pointed to the door. “Your girlfriend is down there. How dare you say these things to me?”

“Rose isn’t my girlfriend. She’s my cousin.”

Lilo frowned. “Cousin?” She didn’t believe it for a second. What cousin stopped by at five in the morning and didn’t even ring the doorbell? She shook her head. “Your cousin visits you at this time of night?”

“She’s helping me decorate my house. She found some antique barstools in Carmel that she wanted to bring over.”

“At five in the morning?”

He shrugged. “She gets very excited when she has a find like that and couldn’t wait to show me.” He stepped closer. “You might not believe me, but you’ll believe Rose. Or do you really think my girlfriend would lie to you and pretend she was my cousin?”

Of course no girlfriend would do that. “No, but—”

He put his finger over her lips, lips that still felt swollen from his passionate kiss.

“Come downstairs with me. We’ll clear this all up. I’m sorry that I came on so strong. But I wanted to kiss you from the moment I saw you in Hannah’s flat. And I’m not an impulsive kind of guy. And just so you know: I would never have kissed you if I were in the relationship with another woman. I don’t play the field. Not anymore. Life’s too precious to waste it on things that mean nothing.”

She noticed how his eyes homed in on her lips, and saw him swallow hard.

“I’d rather spend my time differently.” He smiled. “What I felt when I kissed you… that’s something that only happens once in a million times.”

She sucked in a breath of air.

He clasped her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers. “Now come and let me introduce you to Rose. Curiosity must be killing her by now.”

Lilo had no choice but to go with him as he led her down the stairs, not letting go of her hand until they’d reached the hallway, where Rose was waiting for them.

The young woman smiled at her, stretching out her hand in greeting. “I’m Rose, and please, let me apologize. If I’d known that Blake wasn’t alone, I would have never barged in like that.”

Lilo shook her hand. “I’m sorry I gave you the wrong impression…”

“Oh, luvvie, please don’t apologize. I’ve known this guy here all his life and he can be a bit much to handle. Let’s just blame him, shall we?”

“Thanks a lot, Rose,” Blake threw in.

Lilo stumbled over something in Rose’s words. “You mean you’ve known him all
your
life? Not
his
. You’re clearly younger than Blake.”

“Oh, yes, of course, dear.” She made a dismissive gesture. “Now I’ll get out of your hair in a moment, but I have two barstools in my car, and I’ll need a hand with them.”

“I’ll take care of that. Give me your keys,” Blake offered immediately, as if glad to escape for a moment.

Rose tossed him the keys, and a moment later he stalked outside into the dark, and Rose turned back to her.

“Well, that gives us some time to get to know each other.”

Lilo nodded and shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry, I just have to ask. He said you’re his cousin, but you don’t look alike at all, and your accent is British.”

Rose took her hand. “Blake and I are family. And I know how it looked when I came in, but he just caught me by surprise. I haven’t seen him with a woman in a long time. He doesn’t do
casual
.”

Lilo swallowed. “Casual?”

“You know: casual sex. He’s too busy for that. And he never mentioned you to me before.” The question in Rose’s words was implied.

“We only met tonight.” Immediately she wanted to take the words back. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m easy. I don’t normally do things like that…” She wanted to sink into the ground, wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. “It’s not how it seems…”

“Oh, dear.” Rose suddenly sounded like an elderly aunt about to give advice.

Lilo lifted her lids and met Rose’s eyes. Concern was etched deep into them.

“Then you don’t really know him yet.” Rose leaned in and lowered her voice. “Blake is a good man. Trust in that, no matter what happens. If he cares about you, he will protect you with his life.”

Surprised at the other’s strange words, Lilo wanted to ask what Rose meant, but Blake appeared at that moment carrying two barstools. He set them down.

“Everything alright here?” he asked, his gaze bouncing between her and Rose.

“Of course, luvvie,” Rose replied. Then she walked to the door, accepting her car keys from Blake. She looked over her shoulder. “I should go home. Quinn is waiting for me.” She smiled. “It was very nice meeting you, Lilo. I hope it won’t be the last time.”

“Nice meeting you, too, Rose,” she managed to reply before the beautiful blonde breezed out of the house.

Slowly Blake approached. “Are we okay?”

“I should go to sleep. It’s been a long night.” She avoided his gaze. Before she could walk past him, he stopped her and put his fingers under her chin, making her look at him.

“I’m not going to do anything you don’t want. You have my word… No matter how hot it got earlier.” He kissed her gently on the cheek. “Good night, Lilo. Get some rest. Perhaps we’ll have a few leads on Hannah by tomorrow.”

She smiled at him, at ease again. Rose was right. Blake was a good man. But even good men turned into hungry predators when teased. And she had teased him, tempted him. Though she didn’t regret it. No, not a single second of it. But she also knew she had to take things slower. The incident with Rose had shown her that she knew next to nothing about the man who made her pulse race like a bullet train and her blood sizzle like an egg on the hood of a hot car. And as much as she wanted to continue where they’d left off before Rose had interrupted them, she knew it was better to resist that urge and try to get to know Blake better before she did something she couldn’t undo.

13

Wesley dropped the crystal pendant on the map of Northern California and sighed in frustration. He’d gone to Hannah’s flat, but he hadn’t found much. It turned out that Hannah was pretty neat and tidy. He’d taken her toothbrush in the hopes enough of her DNA was on the bristles, as well as her hairbrush, which only contained a few strands of her hair. Using those two things he’d scried for her, but come up empty.

“Fuck!” he grunted.

Scrying was one of the most basic magical skills, and he was more accomplished than most. He was aware that scrying didn’t work on vampires, but Hannah was human, so he should have found her by now. There were two reasons why he wouldn’t—the first was that the amount of DNA on the toothbrush and the hairbrush weren’t sufficient, the second that she was dead. And the latter reason he wasn’t ready to accept. Because Blake wouldn’t accept it.

So he clung to the first reason. After all, the toothbrush had looked rather new and clean, and he’d found only a half dozen hairs in Hannah’s brush. Probably not enough to get a reading on her, particularly not if she was far away.

His phone rang, interrupting him.

“Yes?”

“Wes, it’s Matt. I’ve got the results for you.”

“Coming down now.”

He needed to clear his head anyway. Maybe he’d come up with something later.

Wesley marched down the hallway of one of the basement floors of Scanguards’ Mission headquarters, heading for the IT lab. Both Thomas and Eddie had left shortly after Wesley had brought the suspect’s laptop to the office, so the task of hacking into it and examining the information on it had been given to Matt, one of their trusted human employees.

It was quiet as he walked down the corridor. Mostly humans and hybrids manned the offices during the day. Few vampires were around, most of them having gone home to sleep. It was midday. As soon as the winter sun set, headquarters would be buzzing like a beehive again. But during the day, this was his domain: he was the highest-ranking Scanguards employee on site. And he liked it that way.

Without knocking, Wes entered the IT lab.

Only a few people were sitting in front of the many computer workstations dotted around the large room. Including one person he hadn’t been expecting.

“Isabelle? What are you doing here?”

Samson’s twenty-two-year-old hybrid daughter looked up from the computer and smiled. “Hi, Wes.” She jerked her thumb at the man next to her. “Clark is teaching me programming and stuff.”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were interested in IT.”

She shrugged, tossing a strand of her long dark hair over her shoulder. She was as beautiful as her mother, and as smart as her father. “I’m not. But I figured if I want to run the company one day I should know as much as possible about how everything works.”

Wesley couldn’t help but chuckle. “You wouldn’t by any chance be competing with your brother again?”

“Which one?” she shot back.

“Both, actually,” Wes said.

Though Grayson, one year Isabelle’s junior, was the more ambitious of her brothers. Patrick, who’d only just turned nineteen was a little more laid back and wasn’t yet thinking of how to position himself to take over his father’s company, should Samson ever decide to retire. Which, considering how much Samson loved his job, would probably never happen.