Hunter's Prey: Bloodhounds, Book 2 (18 page)

“Will you petition for the job? There are other towns along the border where bloodhounds serve as the law, you know.”

Once she sat, he lingered behind her, fingertips ghosting up the side of her neck in an idle caress. One of a dozen ways he touched her every day, as if even the innocent brush of skin against skin soothed something inside him. “That’s what Emmett told me. He said the hound who was here before Wilder had done it once…”

Levi had done plenty before Satira’s mother died. With her had gone his light and his will to work hard for the betterment of the town. “Levi was a wonderful sheriff. And you would be too.”

“Sheriff.” He circled the desk to settle into his chair, his expression thoughtful. “It’s a different sort of job than chasing vampires up and down the Deadlands.”

“That’s what you think.” She reached across the desk to grasp his hand. “Wilder wants a meeting—you and Archer and Nate. To discuss what they discovered about the drug trade. And to talk about Emmett and Tobias.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Figured that was coming. Haven’t quite gotten around to mentioning that I might have signed on to a bloodhound rebellion. Reckon Wilder’s going to shout at me?”

“Only if he doesn’t agree, which I seriously doubt.”

Hunter narrowed his eyes as he rubbed his thumb along the edge of the desk. “Do you really think I’d make a good sheriff? Wilder didn’t seem to mind letting me handle it for the short term…but I never made much of myself as a human, even with all the advantages I had.”

“You never had much of a chance,” she countered. “You were groomed to be a gentleman, and now you’re a bloodhound. A head for politics and the soul of a fighter, perhaps?”

His lips twitched. “When both of them are working together, which is mostly when you’re around to ground me.” Hunter lifted his gaze to hers, and for the first time she saw his naked uncertainty. “Is it too much?”

“Being with you?” She didn’t have to cast about for the right note of reassurance, because the answer was stamped on her soul. “It’ll never be enough, Hunter, never mind
too much
.”

“My needs…” He gripped the edge of the desk. “Sometimes I still feel like two people. The pieces are falling together, a bit at a time, but only because of you. Because you’re the one thing that makes sense, to the man I was and the bloodhound I am. I need you. I need you until I think I’ll crush you under the weight of needing you.”

“I’ll be here,” she promised. “You know I will.”

“I want to be here too. Here, in Iron Creek. With you.”

The words held a note of anticipation, as if he had more to say. “Hunter?”

“Marry me.” The words tumbled out in a rush. “I don’t give a good goddamn if bloodhounds are supposed to. I never signed up to be one, and I never took any oaths. If this is the life I’m going to have, I want to have it with you.”

Marry me.
The words echoed in time with her thumping heart. “You—you want to get married?”

He looked a little wild-eyed, on the verge of purely masculine panic. “You don’t?”

“No! I mean, I do.” She stumbled over the words. “But are you sure? This soon?”

He laughed and leaned across the desk. “Sweetheart, you’re the only one who can decide when. If you left it to me, I’d be dragging the preacher back here by the scruff of his neck. I’m just praying you don’t run from me, because I don’t know if I could keep from chasing you.”

Ophelia launched herself across the desk and into Hunter’s lap, sending his chair skidding back into the wall. She didn’t care, just clung to his neck and whispered, “I love you.”

“Thank the Lord,” he muttered, burying his fingers in her hair. “If you’d run… I wish I could say I’d do the right thing. Let you go. But there are parts of me that’d hunt you to the ends of the earth.”

She knew. “Shut up and kiss me.”

He did, slow and deep, tongue coaxing her lips to part before he closed his teeth on the lower one with a hungry growl. “Should have locked the door.”

If only. “Can’t,” she groaned. “You’ve been summoned, remember? Official bloodhound business, and all.”

Hunter grumbled against her cheek, then sighed. “Fine, but as soon as official business is over, I’m going to do things to you that’d strike that preacher dead just to hear them.”

“Only if you promise me something.” She bit his ear. “Promise we can have our
own
place. Away from the manor.”

“Away from Archer? Hell yes.”

“Away from prying eyes and ears,” she clarified.

He didn’t seem to care much about his official summons, because he tilted her head back and grinned down at her. “Away from everything but this.” He claimed her mouth with every ounce of the possession she’d felt in their very first kiss and more—affection, need. Possibility. The world was wide open, hers for the taking. She could have everything.

And she did.

About the Author

How do you make a Moira Rogers? Take a former forensic science and nursing student obsessed with paranormal romance and add a computer programmer with a passion for gritty urban fantasy. To learn more about this romance-writing, crime-fighting duo, visit their webpage at
www.moirarogers.com
, or drop them an email at
[email protected]
. (Disclaimer: crime-fighting abilities may appear only in the aforementioned fevered imaginations.)

Look for these titles by Moira Rogers

Now Available:

Red Rock Pass

Cry Sanctuary

Sanctuary Lost

Sanctuary’s Price

Sanctuary Unbound

Southern Arcana

Crux

Crossroads

Deadlock

Cipher

Building Sanctuary

A Safe Harbor

Undertow

…and the Beast

Sabine

Kisri

Children of the Undying

Demon Bait

Hammer Down

Wilder’s Mate

Coming Soon:

Archer’s Lady

Impulse

Enigma

Think a vampire-hunting bloodhound is dangerous? Try threatening his woman.

Wilder’s Mate

© 2011 Moira Rogers

Bloodhounds, Book 1

Wilder Harding is a bloodhound, created by the Guild to hunt down and kill vampires on America’s frontier. His enhanced abilities come with a high price: on the full moon, he becomes capable of savagery beyond telling, while the new moon brings a sexual hunger that borders on madness.

Rescuing a weapons inventor from undead kidnappers is just another assignment, though one with an added complication—keeping his hands off the man’s pretty young apprentice, who insists on tagging along.

At odds with polite society, Satira’s only constant has been the aging weapons inventor who treats her like a daughter. She isn’t going to trust Wilder with Nathaniel’s life, not when the Guild might decide the old man isn’t worth saving. Besides, if there's one thing she's learned, it's that brains are more important than brawn.

As the search stretches far longer than Wilder planned, he finds himself fighting against time. If Satira is still at his side when the new moon comes, nothing will stop him from claiming her. Worse, she seems all too willing. If their passion unlocks the beast inside, no one will be safe. Not even the man they’re fighting to save.

Warning: This book contains a crude, gun-slinging, vampire-hunting hero who howls at the full moon and a smart, stubborn heroine who invents mad-scientist weapons. Also included: wild frontier adventures, brothels, danger, betrayal and a good dose of wicked loving in an alternate Wild West.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Wilder’s Mate:

He’d almost managed to get to sleep when a timid knock sounded on the door that led to Satira’s adjoining room. “Wilder?”

He fought the urge to slam a pillow over his face. “Yeah?”

She must have taken his reply as permission to enter, because the door inched open and she slipped through, a slight shadow wrapped in a blanket. The floorboards creaked as she took a step closer to the bed. “Do you mind…?”

She looked like she thought he’d growl at her until she ran screaming from the room. “Come on in.”

“I can’t sleep.” Her voice held more than a little shame at the confession. “If people are expecting you to bed me, it can’t hurt our disguise if we sleep in the same room, can it?”

Now he wanted to slam a pillow over his lap. “Can’t hurt our disguise.” It could only hurt
him
if he had to control himself around her. She grasped her blanket tight around her shoulders, but the gauzy fabric brushing the floor as she walked was sheer, flesh-colored silk.

She stopped next to the bed. “If you don’t want me here, I’ll go. I’ll understand.”

“Do you?”

“I think so.” She stared at the floor. “Men have needs, but you’re not interested in complicating our already difficult situation by giving in to them.”

If he was a snake… “Did you come over here for sex, or because you’d sleep better if you weren’t alone?”

“The latter.” She shivered and clutched at the blanket as it began to slip. “I know you could get to my room quickly enough if anything happened, but the way some of those men were watching me…”

She was scared, and he felt even worse about his lust as he patted the blanket beside him. “Climb up. You don’t have to be alone, and you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Thank you.” The blanket gaped open as she scrambled onto the bed, revealing that the damn flimsy nightgown Juliet had packed for her was transparent all over. She shivered and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

Wilder shook his head. “That scrap of nothing isn’t warm enough.”

Satira choked on a laugh, a little hysterical but genuine. “I know. If it gets much colder tonight you’ll have to kick me out of your bed to keep me from cuddling as close as I can.”

The laughter was better than the way she’d looked at him before, hesitant and wary and almost ashamed of her fear. “If you put your cold feet on me, I’ll scream like a little girl.”

Icy toes poked at his leg, and he laughed and shoved her away.

She squirmed right back, and this time he got an entire foot pressed against his knee. Her breathless laughter cut short on a little moan of pleasure. “You’re so
warm
.”

“Won’t be for long.” He affected a growl, one he ruined by laughing again. “Jesus, woman. What were you doing, hanging your legs out the window?”

Satira huffed, but it didn’t stop her from tucking her other foot against his shin. “My feet get cold.”

“You’re a walking icebox.”

She echoed his words back, laced with drowsy contentment. “Won’t be for long.”

Quick as a rattlesnake bite, his protective shell of humor faded, leaving him in bed with a sleepy, scantily clad woman whose body made his knees weak. “Then it’ll be my turn to freeze.”

One small hand crept back across the covers until her fingers brushed his. “I’d keep you warm.”

His balls ached. “Better watch what you promise, sweetheart. I’m not a noble man, no matter what you think.”

Satira twisted until she faced him, eyes wide but unafraid. “It’s been eleven months since a man took me to bed. I don’t want noble.”

His first thought was to turn her over his knee and spank her. That led directly to his second thought, a mental image of her bent over in front of him, her pale ass red from his hand, her cunt glistening and wet. “Satira.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and went still, her slightly ragged breaths and too-quick heartbeat the only sounds for long moments. Then she breathed out a tiny sigh. “You make me feel like such a fool, throwing myself at a man who doesn’t want to have me. Over and over again, and I’m supposed to be intelligent.”

He urged one of the thin straps of the nightgown from her shoulder. “You worry too much.”

“I know.” With her eyes still shut she missed his mouth the first time, her open-mouthed kiss landing on his cheek.

His cock jerked like she’d licked him, and he turned his head far enough to meet her second kiss head-on, opening his mouth under hers. He swallowed her tiny little moan, and for a moment she seemed shy. Her tongue darted along his lower lip, then returned to stroke deeper, teasing against his.

He moved before he realized it, rolling them both and pinning her to the bed. “I’m not a boy. You know that, right?”

A short, jerky nod, and she wet her lips. “You’re not just a man, either. I know that too.”

No fear, and he trembled at the thought of being able to let go.
Really
let go. “No, not a man, either.”

She craned her head up and kissed his chin, then the corner of his lips. “I will enjoy your attentions. Even if you wish to bind me, or order me to my knees, or take me across yours.”

“Shh.” Right now, there was only one thing he wanted to do. He slid one hand into her hair and tilted her head back, opening her mouth wider so he could kiss her deeply.

There was nothing quiet about her moan this time. Her fingers found the back of his head, clutching at him as if she could pull him closer. She reacted more quickly than he thought she would, melting under him.

He trailed his mouth to her neck and collarbone. “What if I do something else entirely? Will you like that?”

“I won’t know until you do it.” Her fingers stroked down to his shoulder, exploring with unabashed curiosity. “I like an adventure. And learning new things.”

“If what I have planned for you is new, you’ve been bedding the wrong men.”

Her bare shoulder lifted in a shrug, but her voice held a soft vulnerability. “They found me pleasant enough to tumble. Perhaps I didn’t inspire them. None of them had seen me in my fancy hair and expensive dress, after all.”

“Like I said…” He skimmed one hand down her side and gathered her sheer gown high on her leg. “You’ve been bedding the wrong men.”

She laughed and bent one knee, sliding her foot along his calf. “Perhaps. So how do you intend to prove that you’re the right man?”

“I could.” His fingertips tickled over the top of her thigh. “Spread your legs.”