Midnight (4 page)

He shrugged. “I don’t see why. You’ve done nothing but yell
since you got here. If I were someone close to you, I’d be happy for the
vacation.”

“You can’t talk to me that way! I’ve got an agent. I’ve got
a huge townhouse and a really big car. I’ve got a whole line of Midnight
merchandise with my picture all over it.” She narrowed her eyes for effect. “I’ve
got
action figures!
”

He laughed outright at that. “How nice for you. It must be
wonderful to be immortalized in eleven and a half inch plastic.”

She didn’t find any of this very funny. “Say whatever you
want. You’re not even real. I probably bumped my head when I fell, and I’ll
wake up in my own home with a splitting headache.”

“Trust me. I’m very real.” He leaned closer until his lips
brushed her neck. “And you may not be very hungry, but
I
am. I’m
thinking you would make a very nice meal.”

Oh, God
. This man was crazier than she thought. She’d
faced rabid, demented fans a time or two in her career, but she’d never been
about to be turned into someone’s bedtime snack.

“Wait! Don’t do anything rash. Whatever it is you want from
me, we can work it out.”

He said nothing, but she could feel his lips curl into a
smile against her
throat. She gulped, wondering what it would take to get him to back off.

Or what it would take to get him closer.

She took a deep breath and willed herself to concentrate on
the situation at hand. If she remained rational, she’d be able to find a way
out of this without getting hurt. Probably. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Marco.”

“What’s your last name?” Maybe she’d recognize the name from
some of those demented fan letters she got every so often.

He shook his head. “Just Marco. I don’t normally use
anything else.”

“Okay, Just Marco. Why don’t we make a deal.” She struggled
to keep the quiver out of her voice. He had to feel how hard her pulse was
pounding.

“No deals.” He pressed his hands to the window, one on
either side of her head.

She sighed, a little too close to the edge of insanity
herself. If she let her rational side slip one more notch, she was going to
totally lose it. “Please listen to me for a second. My life has been really,
really
bad lately. I lost my job and my fiancé in the same day, I haven’t been able to
find a decent job in months, and now this. I’m about a second away from losing
my mind, and I don’t think you want to be dealing with a hysterical female
right now.”

“I really don’t care.” He brought his gaze up to meet hers,
his expression indifferent. “Yell, scream, and cry— whatever you need to do. No
one will hear you all the way out here. It’s just the two of us.”

She blew out a breath. She’d just about exhausted her
options here. “Are you trying to scare me?”

He lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. “Maybe.”

She
was
scared, but she was also getting angry. She
had a feeling he was toying with her, taunting her to purposely get her upset.
He was taking some kind of sick pleasure in her confusion. She wished she had
something around to hit him with. She didn’t dare use her hand—the man looked
so solid she’d probably break her knuckles.

“Tell me something,” he said. “What’s the fascination you
humans have with vampires?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What does it matter to you?”

“Watching everything being done wrong is getting a little
old. I can’t believe anyone would actually want that kind of a job.”

“Look, buddy, I needed that job. It doesn’t really matter
why I did it, just that I was good at it.”

The corner of his mouth rose in a half-smile. “That’s not
quite the word I’d use to describe your performance.”

She sucked in a harsh breath, fisting her hands at her sides
before she did something irrational like attempt to break his nose. “I had to
do what I was told. That was the nature of the job.”

He laughed. “And I’m sure someone held you at gun point,
forcing you to dress in next to nothing and run around like a brainless sexpot.”

“Oh, and what would you have liked me to do, continue living
in a rat-infested studio apartment, waiting tables at a trashy bar to pay the
bills?” She’d done
that
for a long time before she got a break. She wasn’t
about to give in to some psycho with delusions. “The Midnight series was the
best thing that ever happened to me.”

This was just crazy. She’d heard some horror stories about
stalkers before, but this beat them all hands down. It was her own fault for
opening the door and inviting him to take over her life, but in the end it
wouldn’t have mattered. He would have found another way in. He didn’t seem like
the type to give up easily.

Vampires
were
fictional. If she kept repeating that,
maybe she’d be able to ignore the fangs that protruded from between his lips
and the hungry gleam in his eyes she doubted had anything to do with food.

“Marco?” Her voice was more of a whisper than the forceful
command she’d intended.

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“You don’t actually drink blood, do you?”

He smiled slowly. “Do you want to find out?”

She shook her head. “
No!
”

Marco did something unexpected. He burst out laughing. “You
look like you’re going to pass out again. Please don’t do that. It was bad
enough the first time.”

Indignation rose in her, sharp and fast. She wasn’t some
sissy girl who couldn’t handle herself when things got a little rough. “I did
not pass out. I…I was faking it.”

“Not at first, you weren’t.”

No, she hadn’t been. But what did he expect? Getting kidnapped
by an escaped mental patient with a vampire fixation wasn’t exactly an everyday
occurrence. “Yes, I was. And stop laughing at me.”

“I’ll stop laughing when you stop acting like a fool. I’m
not going to hurt you. I told you that before.”

“Much.”

“What?” His expression was confused.

“Much,” she repeated. “You said you weren’t going to hurt me
much.”

“Did I?” He shook his head, his eyes clouding over. He
looked mildly alarmed for all of five seconds before the smile was back. “I
guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

His smile widened and she noticed the fangs had gone away.

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?” He leaned against the footboard of the gigantic
bed that took up a good portion of the room. His stance was casual, but she had
a feeling he was baiting her.

“Make those fake fangs go away.”

“I have control over them. They come and go as I want them
to. At least, most of the time.” He winked at her. “I know you’re having a hard
time believing this, but they’re not fake.”

“Oh, okay.” Yeah, this made a whole lot of sense. Not only
was he a vampire with razor sharp fangs, they conveniently disappeared when he
didn’t want them there.

“I can prove it.”

She shook her head, not sure she liked the sound of that. “Just
knock it off, okay?”

She turned away from him and looked out the window again. It
was now completely dark outside, the inky blackness a sharp contrast to the
bright lamps in the bedroom. Her eyes widened at the sight of her reflection in
the glass. She looked like she’d been run over by a dump truck.

Her hair was matted in some places, snarled in others, her
clothes were impossibly wrinkled, and there was more mascara running down her
cheeks than there was on her eyelashes. The least Marco could do after he’d
kidnapped her was give her a hairbrush and a washcloth. Self-consciously
swiping a hand through her ratty hair, she turned to ask him for something to
wash up with.

She screamed when she bumped into a solid wall of male
chest. Stumbling back, she looked up at Marco and blinked hard. How did he get
there? Just a second ago, he’d been standing halfway across the room. “How did
you do that? Is this some kind of trick?”

“I can move very quickly and silently when I want to.”

“But you…I…no, no,
no
.”

“As you will find out, sweetheart, some of your little human
legends are fairly close to the truth.”

She gulped. “Do you teleport around or something?”

“Not exactly.” He leaned over her neck and drew a deep
breath, shaking his head as he moved away. “It’s more a matter of being in
total control of myself. I can move across short distances faster than your
eyes can follow.”

She gaped at him, not able to form a single coherent
sentence. Two things registered in her mind—one, the man was either very quick
or some kind of an illusionist, or two, she might want to start rethinking her
views on the existence of vampires.

Marco had walked out of the room soon after the little show,
giving Amara some time to let it all sink in. She needed some time to think
about everything before she accepted him for what he was. He could see in her
eyes that she wanted to believe him, but something was holding her back. Most
likely, her Hollywood lifestyle had jaded her so much she no longer believed in
anything but her next paycheck.

In a way, she wasn’t the only one who was jaded. He’d lived
a long time, and he’d seen a lot of things that made him angry. He’d been angry
enough to kill many times, though he’d never given in to the temptation.

He’d never kidnapped anyone, either.

When had this situation gotten out of control? He really had
no excuse for what he’d done. He shouldn’t have taken her, but he’d gotten so
agitated, so obsessed that he’d snapped. He’d had a few occasions in his life
where he’d been close to blind with fury, but only one other instance came close
to this. It was one he’d tried most of his life to forget, but knew he never
would.

This was absolute madness. He should let her go back to her
life, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to do it. When he was close
to her, he couldn’t account for his actions. Her arrogance spurred his anger
and curiosity even more, and her fear enticed him in a way it shouldn’t.

What upset him the most was how much he wanted her. He
thought getting close to her, learning that she wasn’t the woman he’d thought she
was, would be enough to turn him off. She
wasn’t
what he’d thought, but
it didn’t help get her out of his head. There was something about her that drew
him to her. He’d been angry with her when he’d taken her. Now he didn’t know
what he was.

Why had he put her in his bedroom? There were so many other
rooms in the house to keep her in. Her comfort should be nowhere near the front
of his mind. She didn’t deserve the best suite in the house, but he couldn’t
very well move her now. He’d made the mistake of taking her, and now he was
going to have to deal with it.

He shook his head as he walked down the hall toward one of
the spare bedrooms. He’d put her in his room because of one reason. The second
he saw her in person, in jeans and a tee shirt instead of artificial leather
and gallons of makeup, he knew he had to have her.

But he couldn’t.

After the way he’d abducted her, Amara would never agree to
anything. She would also never understand the desire that coursed through his
veins whenever he got within ten feet of her. She wouldn’t understand that, for
some reason, he fed off the fear he sensed in her as much as the desire he’d
seen in her eyes.

And it had been there. She would deny it, but he’d seen it.
She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and she wasn’t happy about it, either.

He wanted to possess her.

Shaking his head, he tried to get rid of this temporary
madness. He found women attractive, but certainly not necessary in the grand
scheme of things. They were temporary playthings, enjoyed briefly before he
threw them away in favor of a younger, fresher model. They were most certainly
not
something to keep.

Ever.

He couldn’t keep the human woman, no matter how much his
delusional mind thought it wanted to. She was not his to take, and she was
not
his to keep. She had her own life, one he knew nothing about, and she
wouldn’t take kindly to being made into the permanent pet of a four hundred
year old vampire.

He stopped outside his locked bedroom door, knowing the only
thing that separated him from the temptation on the other side was the flimsy
piece of wood and the even flimsier lock. It would keep her inside effectively,
yet it would never keep him out if he lost control of himself and went to her.

He pressed his palm to the door, feeling the beat of her heart
through the wood. Was it his imagination, or did her blood begin to beat a
little faster in her veins?

He shook his head, chalking it all up to spending entirely
too much time acting like a lunatic. She was probably sound asleep, giving no
thoughts to him other than those of most painful revenge.

He left before he could no longer reign in the urge to go to
her and ravish her like the animal he was. Right now, sleep was in order. He
would figure out what to do with Amara after he got a few hours’ rest. He’d
been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and it was time to recharge before
he faced her again.

* * * * *

Amara sat on the edge of the bed, absently changing the
channels on the small TV she’d found inside the armoire next to the bed. She
didn’t have a watch and there were no clocks in the room, but she could see the
light fading outside yet again. It had been an entire day, and her stomach was
loudly protesting the prolonged absence of food.

She got up from the bed and pounded at the door. “Hello! I
need food in here! Come on, Marco, even prisoners on death row get treated
better than this.”

She hit the door as hard as she could until her fists went
numb, but it was no use. She got the same response she’d been getting all day.

Nothing.

Here she was, getting ready to waste away, and Marco the
Vampire was probably in bed getting his beauty sleep.

She’d stayed awake most of the night thinking about it. As
much as she hated to admit it, she’d been kidnapped by what appeared to be a
living, breathing vampire. Or at least she
thought
he lived and
breathed, but she couldn’t be sure. Fictional ones didn’t, but when she’d been
flush against his chest he’d felt
very
alive to her. Especially the part
of him that responded to her wriggling.

That
part had felt impressive, even through layers of
fabric.

She raised her hands to pound on the door again, but they
hit nothing. The door was open, and she was pounding the air. She looked up,
right into Marco’s dark eyes. Eyes that looked sleepy, glazed, and more than a
little bit annoyed.

“
Oh, shit
.” She backed up an involuntary step.

He pushed his way into the room and set a tray down on the
bedside table. “Did I happen to mention that I’m a bear when I haven’t had
enough sleep?”

She winced inwardly at his growling tone. “Oh, I’m
so
sorry. Next time I’ll just starve until you feel up to feeding me. I guess I’m
not very well-versed in kidnap victim’s etiquette.”

He narrowed his eyes. “There’s some food. I’m going back to
bed.”

A sudden panic hit her at the thought of him walking out and
locking the door behind him. “Wait!”

He turned, his arms crossed over his chest. “What?”

She had no idea what she wanted to say to him, but as
strange as it sounded, she didn’t want to be alone. She had so many questions
to ask him. Hey, if he expected her to learn more about vampires, she had to do
her research, didn’t she?

“Don’t you need to eat?”

He gestured to the tray of food. “I don’t need to eat that.”

“But can you?”

He shrugged. “If I had any desire to, but after a few
hundred years it all starts to taste the same.”

A few hundred?
Oh, boy
. “Um, do you always sleep all
day?”

He nodded. “I do when I don’t have someone here trying to
break down doors and crack my eardrums.”

She rolled her eyes. “Deal with it. I know you can go out in
the sun, since you came to my house in the middle of the afternoon. Why do you
sleep during the day if the sunlight doesn’t bother you?”

“It does bother me. I’m very sensitive to the sunlight, but
it isn’t fatal unless I stay out too long. It’s much more comfortable to sleep
during the day, and be awake when it’s dark.” He sighed and yawned. “Is there
anything else you need, or can I go back to bed?”

“Look. I’ve been alone since last night in a strange house
with nothing to do but watch fuzzy television shows on a set smaller than my
laptop screen. You don’t even have cable. Forgive me for wanting a little
normal conversation.”

And the more she found out about him, the easier it would be
to figure out a way to get away from him. He was strong, she’d give him that,
but no one was invincible.

“I am not capable of
normal
at six in the evening.”

“Humor me.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked
up half a sandwich from the tray. She wrinkled her nose as the pungent smell of
peanut butter hit her. “Yuck.”

“Deal with it. It’s all I have in the house.”

She sighed and took a bite, swallowing it quickly so she
didn’t have to taste it. She set the rest of the sandwich back down on the
plate. One bite was plenty for now.

Marco stood in the doorway for a long time before he sighed
and came into the room. To her disappointment, he closed and locked the door
behind him, pocketing the key and locking them both in the room. “Just in case
you get any ideas.” He flopped onto the bed and closed his eyes.

There had to be another way to get out of this. If she’d
learned one thing in the endless parade of stepfathers her mother had subjected
her to, it was how to take care of herself in the face of threatening men.
Although Marco appeared far less threatening lying flat on his back across the
bed with his eyes closed and his arms sprawled over his head.

Wondering if he was sleeping, she poked him lightly on the
side. Big mistake. In one swift move he had her pinned to the mattress, his big
body covering hers.

“Don’t ever do that!”

She whimpered at the feel of him over her. “Um, sorry.”

He shook his head. “You still don’t know what you’re dealing
with, lady.”

She licked her lips—a nervous habit, but apparently Marco
took it to mean something else entirely. His eyes darkened impossibly and he
crushed his mouth over hers.

He forced his tongue between her parted lips and she thought
she was going to pass out right then. A kiss, especially with a man she didn’t
even know, wasn’t supposed to be
this
good. She should push him away,
tell him where to shove his presumptuous ideas.

Instead, she embarrassed herself by moaning into his mouth
and wrapping her arms around his neck. She hadn’t felt like this in a long
time—maybe never, and she was damned well going to let herself enjoy it. She
could worry later about the fact that he was a total nutcase who had kidnapped
her.

Marco pushed a hand under her shirt, cupping her breast
through the thin fabric of her bra. She arched her back, forcing more of her
breast into his grasp. His breathing hitched when she ground her pelvis against
his, and she smiled a little in satisfaction. She bit his lip, but didn’t
realize the mistake until he pulled his mouth away.

“Doing that again would be a mistake, sweetheart.” His
breath scorched her throat. She could feel the light scrape of his fangs
against her flesh and she gulped. “I’m having a very difficult time controlling
myself. That would put me right over the edge, so unless you want it rough I
suggest you refrain from such contact.”

She drew a shaky breath. “What if I want it rough?”

Marco’s gaze met hers, searching and fiery at the same time.
Finally he rolled off her and back on the mattress. “You don’t want rough, at
least not my kind of rough.”

“You might be surprised.” What the hell was she talking
about? He’d kidnapped her, and all she could think about was how much she
wanted those sharp teeth to sink into her—

Damn it. Now she was the one losing her mind. “You know
what? You’re right. I don’t want it rough. I don’t want it from you at all.”

He rolled onto his side and played with a lock of her hair. “Liar.”

He was right, of course. She was a liar. She wanted him, and
she couldn’t do anything about it. The only thing that made her feel better was
the impressively bulging fly of his pants, which indicated he was in the same
situation. She nearly smiled at the thought, but the worried look in his eyes
changed her mind. “What’s the matter?”

“You have a little blood here.” He swiped his hand across
her mouth and his fingers came away tinged with blood.

She blinked and licked her lips, tasting the blood for
herself. “Sorry. It’s not from me. I guess it’s yours. It must have happened
when I bit your lip.”

He ran his hand across his mouth. “Must have.” He closed his
eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He snapped his eyes open. “You didn’t hurt
me.
”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Probably nothing. Forget it. Just watch what you do around
me, okay? I
like
pain.”

She rubbed her face hard with her hands, trying to hang onto
that last, tiny thread of sanity before she ripped all his clothes off and rode
him until they were both screaming with pleasure. Finally, sanity prevailed in
the form of cleanliness. She could only imagine how terrible she looked right
now. Why had he even wanted to touch her?

“You know, I really think I need to take a shower.”

He nodded, his expression both pained and relieved. “I
suppose you’re going to need clean clothes, too.”

“Well, that would be nice.”

“Okay. I think I can handle this.” He walked to the door. “I’ll
be back in a little while.”