Forever Kisses Volume 1 Read online

  The cop blinked hard.

  The scrape of faltering footsteps drew Val’s attention just in time to see Hirsch staggering toward the edge of the parking garage. He threw himself across the low wall and dropped into the night.

  Shit, she thought. We’re three stories up! Which evidently wasn’t high enough to kill the son of a bitch.

  “Dammit!” Cowboy half turned toward his fleeing enemy.

  “Drop the sword, sir!” It was a roar now. “I will shoot!”

  The vampire’s lush mouth twisted in a frustrated snarl. “I said I don’t have a weapon.”

  The officer blinked hard, then looked at the gun he still held pointed. Swallowing, he straightened hastily and holstered it. “Sorry. I… I don’t…”

  “No weapon?” Val gaped. What the hell was Cowboy doing to him? “Are you nuts? There’s a three-foot sword in his hand! Arrest him!”

  “Shouldn’t you radio in that you were mistaken?” Cowboy interrupted smoothly.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I should.” He reached for the handset clipped to his shoulder.

  “Wait a minute! That man is abducting me!” Val tried fruitlessly to drag her handcuffed hands into view. “Look! He’s got me chained to the door!”

  The cop stopped and stared at her, his eyes confused. “What?”

  “She’s drunk, officer,” Cowboy said in that deep voice he’d used to soothe her so many times. “I’ll take care of her. You’re needed elsewhere.”

  The man focused on him, his gaze clearing. “Yeah. I am.”

  “No!”

  But the cop had already gotten into his car. As Val watched in horrified disbelief, he slammed the door and drove off.

  “No, please,” she whispered, watching the patrol car’s red taillights recede down the garage ramp. “Don’t leave me here with him!” But the lights kept going, disappearing around the corner. Leaving her alone with the vampire.

  Biting down on her lower lip, Val fought not to cry. “What did you do to him?”

  “What I had to.” Cowboy stared across the garage to stare down over the edge of the low wall, scanning for Hirsch. After a moment, he straightened in disgust. “Damn it to hell and back, Gerhard got away.”

  “He won’t get far,” she said numbly. “Not with that gut wound.”

  He snorted. “The bastard will heal by morning.”

  Val heard the ring of his boots on the pavement and shrank back against the car as he walked over and pulled the door away from her body. Wide-eyed, she stared up into his brutally beautiful face as he nodded to the Lexus’ interior. “Get in.”

  Her heart was pounding so hard it ached. She sucked in a breath, preparing to scream her lungs out.

  “Save it, Valerie.” His dark eyes narrowed, his mouth pulling into a grim, cold line. “One, I’m not going to let anyone take you away from me, and two, if you annoy me enough, I’ve got a roll of duct tape in the trunk and no scruples at all about gagging you with it. Three, I’m in a very bad mood, and you do not want to test me.”

  She straightened. Damned if she’d cower. “I always knew you were a gentleman,” she said with sugared acidity.

  To her satisfaction, a flush mounted Cowboy’s high cheekbones. He leaned down until he was close enough to kiss. She found herself focusing on the sensuous line of his mouth like a mouse staring at a cat. “As a matter of fact, I am a gentleman. I’m not going to kill you, and I’m not going to force you. Those are two guarantees you will not get from Edward Ridgemont. Get in the car.”

  A line of sweat broke out over her upper lip at the velvet threat in his eyes. Her defiance collapsed. She sank into the seat and faced front as he shut her in.

  As he walked around the Lexus to the driver’s side, Valerie fought to recover her angry courage. By the time he got in and shut the door, she’d managed it. “You expect me to believe I’m safe with you?”

  “You should.” He stripped off his leather gloves and tossed them into the back seat. When she glanced down at them in the dome light, she saw they gleamed wet and red with Hirsch’s blood. “I’m not some movie vampire who drains people like a frat boy sucking down a Budweiser.” Sliding behind the wheel, he closed the door and started the car. “I don’t kill -- at least, not that way.”

  “You almost killed me,” she spat. “And I was twelve years old. Why should I believe I’m any safer now?”

  “Ridgemont had spent weeks starving me.” Cowboy threw the car into reverse and backed out of the space, his expression tight. She shrank a little closer to the door. “I was…” Something bleak flickered over his face. “Mad. Under normal circumstances, vampires need no more than a pint or so of blood a day.” He braked the car and paused, staring out the windshield. “But if I’d lost control that night… Yes, I would have killed you.” The stare he turned on her was level, intense in its demand she believe. “But I didn’t lose control. The Hunger was worse than it’s ever been in my life, and Ridgemont had planted a compulsion to kill you. But I didn’t. I didn’t hurt you then, and I won’t hurt you now. All I want is to protect you from that bastard.”

  For a long, suspended moment, she stared into his eyes. She had the oddest sensation -- as if she was falling. As if she could… touch his mind. Impossible. And yet… She felt some part of herself loosen. Relax.

  Trust.

  No!

  Val jerked her gaze away from that too handsome, too familiar face. He’d betrayed her before, and he was betraying her now. “I don’t believe you,” she gritted. “You spent seventeen years lying to me, Cowboy. Pretending to be something you aren’t -- human.”

  He set his jaw, threw the car into gear with a violent gesture and drove toward the garage ramp. “I am human. I’m just not mortal.”

  “You’re a vampire,” she growled. “Undead.”

  “Oh, come on!” He flicked her a blazing glare. “Quit thinking like a medieval peasant. I’m alive. I don’t sleep in a coffin. I’m not afraid of crosses or garlic, and I cast a reflection. I’ve got a soul. I don’t turn into bats or wolves or mist…”

  “And you can make cops think you’re unarmed when you’ve got a three-foot sword in your hand. Quit trying to snow me, Cowboy.”

  “My name is Cade McKinnon,” he gritted.

  “But you never told me that. Not once in seventeen years! In fact, you said for years you were nothing but a dream!”

  “Because I never intended you to find out any different! I wanted to keep you out of all this. As far away from Ridgemont and Hirsch as I could.”

  “What do you care?” she demanded, furious. “Why did you come into my dreams, Cow… McKinnon?”

  “You reached out to me, Valerie. You were a child, and you were terrified. I killed your dream vampires for you so you could feel safe.” He stared stonily out the windshield. The stark illumination from the passing security lights threw moving bands of light and shadow across the planes of his intensely masculine face. “I was afraid of what the trauma was doing to you. I was afraid it would break you. In retrospect, I should have known you were stronger than that.”

  Val curled her lip in disbelief. “I reached out to you?”

  But as he started to reply, she glanced out the windshield. Her heart leaped in hope.

  Just ahead, a parking attendant looked up in his booth. Balding, bored and double-chinned, he sat like a lump on his stool. Val thought she’d never seen anyone more lovely in her life.

  He’ll see the handcuffs! If she could just get his attention, he’d call the police. It might not do any good, but then again, this time she might get lucky.

  She tensed, hoping McKinnon wouldn’t realize the danger and do something to hide the cuffs. Instead, he drove calmly up to the booth, rolled down the window, and held out his ticket. The attendant took it from him and turned back toward his cash register.

  Heart pounding, Val spread her wrists apart on either side of the armrest, trying to make the handcuffs more noticeable. She didn’t dare call the man’s attention directly. If Mc
Kinnon realized what she was trying to do, he’d use whatever magic he had on the cop to make him ignore what was happening. But if the attendant spotted the cuffs without giving her away…

  As the man turned to give McKinnon his change, his gaze slid to Val’s pleading eyes, then to her chained wrists. His jaw dropped as his gaze darted back to the vampire’s face.

  “She likes kinky sex,” McKinnon said, without a flicker of expression.

  “Oh.” The attendant slumped back into boredom. “Have a nice night.”

  The booth’s arm slid up, and the vampire guided the car out of the garage and into the night. “Among other things, I’m a telepath,” he told her, his tone matter-of-fact. “People believe whatever the hell I make them believe.”

  Val stared at him. Well, that explained the cop.

  Would he do the same thing to her? Would he turn those dark, hypnotic eyes on her and purr, “Strip for me”?

  It was too easy to imagine obeying him like a sleepwalker, taking off every stitch until her body stood naked and vulnerable under that dark, hungry stare. Heat mounted Val’s cheekbones as she remembered the way the vampire had felt holding her down during their struggle, his muscled weight covering her so completely. Would those big hands stroke and tease, or would he just order her to spread her thighs?

  And then there was all those dreams, when Cowboy had made love to her with such heat and strength and sensuality, wickedly skillful, impossibly seductive.

  His jaw worked as he fed, simultaneously surging upward in such long, deep plunges that his big shaft almost slipped free with every driving thrust…

  She licked her lips and blurted, “Are you going to use your powers on me, too?”

  The vampire glanced over at her. Whatever he saw made him inhale sharply like a wolf catching a scent. Something so knowing and amused slipped into his eyes, she wondered in horror if he’d somehow seen the erotic images in her mind. His mouth kicked up in a half-smile. “Why? Would you like me to?”

  “What? No!” She shrank back in her seat.

  Cade knew from her appalled expression she was afraid he’d somehow read her thoughts. He hadn’t, of course -- since she was Kith, he couldn’t, at least not while she was awake. But he could still use his supernatural sense of smell, and there had been more than a hint of arousal in her scent just now.

  For a moment he let himself imagine what it would be like to really touch her, taste her, just as he had in all those luscious dreams…

  No, Cade told himself firmly. Not now, not ever. She was off-limits. Besides, they had to put several hundred miles between them and Ridgemont. There wasn’t time for a seduction.

  Unfortunately, his cock didn’t care about logic. The image of Valerie spread and naked under him sent heat steaming through his veins. He cursed silently. All the situation needed to really go to hell was for her to catch a glimpse of the rock-hard bulge growing behind his zipper.

  The scent of Hirsch’s blood didn’t help. It splattered the front of his uniform, and he could still smell it on the gloves. With that dark, tempting aroma filling his head, it was all too easy to imagine biting slowly into Valerie’s luscious throat as he rode her hard.

  He had to ditch the blood-soaked clothing before he did something he’d regret. Spotting a green dumpster, Cade turned down an alley. Valerie tensed warily as he got out. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Why are we stopping?”

  “I’ve got to get rid of this damn tunic,” he said as he started unbuttoning it. “Hirsch bled all over it, and the smell is driving me crazy.”

  Val watched wide-eyed as he stripped off the jacket. Beneath it he wore a white T-shirt that hugged every ridge, plane, and hollow of his impressive chest. He opened the Lexus’ rear door and got the gloves, then balled them inside the jacket. Striding to the dumpster, he broke the padlock holding the lid shut, raised it, then tossed the gory bundle in. The tight black trousers pulled snug across his muscled butt, and the riding boots gleamed in the light of the streetlamp. Something hot and feminine clenched inside her. She gritted her teeth and fought the reaction. He’s a vampire, you idiot. And he’s been lying to you for seventeen years.

  McKinnon returned to the car and got in. “To answer your question, no, I can’t influence your mind the way I can other mortals,” he told her, picking up the argument again as he started the engine. “If I could, we wouldn’t have had that little wrestling match back there. And you wouldn’t be in your current mess.”

  She studied him warily. “I don’t understand.”

  For a moment he was silent, threading the car into the late-night airport traffic. “The fact that I can’t influence your thoughts means you’re Kith.”

  Val frowned. “Kiss?”

  “Kith. As in ‘Kith and Kin.’ To vampires.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You have psychic abilities. And that makes you Kith.”

  What kind of game was he playing now? “That’s bull, McKinnon. I’ve never read anybody’s mind in my life.”

  “Yes, you have. And I know damn well you remember it.” He paused to steer the Lexus around a stalled taxi. “Think back to that night when you were a kid. I was on my knees, trying not to kill you. You looked into my eyes…”

  And felt the sickening sensation of falling into madness, into clawing pain, into a Hunger greater than anything she’d ever known. A Hunger only blood could satisfy.

  She jerked her gaze away from him. “I imagined that.” Her voice shook.

  “No. You didn’t.”

  Val stared down at her hands twisted in the cuffs and curled them into fists. “Why did you do that to me?”

  “I didn’t. You did. You reached into my mind. I still don’t know how. Even a Kith mortal shouldn’t be able to touch a vampire’s mind -- our mental shields are too strong. But you did it anyway.” McKinnon shrugged. “The nearest I can figure, we were both so desperate, our minds… fused.”

  Val wanted to deny it. But then she remembered… “Did you have sex with a woman tonight? Gray in her hair? Late forties, early fifties?”

  McKinnon shot her a startled glance. It was all the answer she needed.

  “Hell.” She let her head fall against the side window.

  “You saw that?”

  “Dreamed it.” Val bit back a laugh. He sounded mortified. “Why have I never noticed this before? I don’t read minds. And I’d have known, because I get lied to for a living.” Half the people she’d interviewed for the paper seemed to view the truth as something to control like nuclear waste.

  “Most Kith never realize they have psychic abilities,” McKinnon said. Glancing at him, she was amused to note he still wore an expression of profound discomfort. “We think it’s because they develop mental shields as children to protect themselves from the thoughts of those around them. Even vampires can’t touch a Kith’s mind.” He paused. “When I made love to that woman, it was because I needed to feed. I expected a fight with Ridgemont and Hirsch, and I…”

  “You sound like a man trying to explain himself to his girlfriend, McKinnon. I don’t care who you sleep with.” But as she said the words, Val felt a twinge that made her frown.

  Was she jealous of a vampire?

  * * *

  “Careful, you stupid son of a bitch!” Hirsch bit back a yelp as Bobby Mason helped him into the back of the limousine. He would have punished the mortal for his carelessness, but he didn’t dare divert his attention from the gaping wound in his guts. It was taking all the power he had to keep from bleeding into unconsciousness. Summoning Mason telepathically had almost finished him.

  McKinnon was as good with a knife as Ridgemont.

  Mason muttered an apology and helped him lie down across the back seat. Hirsch hissed and cursed the chauffeur, Ridgemont, and McKinnon equally with each flare of ripping pain.

  “I told the Old One,” he snarled as Mason lifted his legs onto the seat. “I told him that American bastard was plotting against us. Any
fool could see it. But no, Ridgemont did not believe me. And look where it got us. First McKinnon almost blew us up, and now…” He ground his teeth as an incautious breath sent agony searing through him. “…and now he’s gutted me.”

  “Maybe if you didn’t talk --”

  “Shut up and drive!” Panting, Hirsch subsided a moment, one hand clamped hard against his seeping wound as Mason hurried around to the driver’s side. “Ridgemont always favored the American. The stupidity of sending me against him armed only with that ridiculous pig sticker! Did he want me to lose? And now McKinnon will Change the little Chase bitch…”

  Which meant that the next time they fought, Hirsch was a dead man.

  He ground his teeth together at the thought of the American’s revenge as Mason started the limo with a hasty roar. The car lurched forward. Hirsch strangled a scream. “Careful, damn you!”

  “Sorry, Mr. Hirsch.”

  “No, you’re not,” the vampire snarled. “But you will be.”

  Mason’s broad shoulders hunched.

  Panting, Hirsch focused his attention on his butchered body. He knew he’d need Ridgemont’s help to repair the wound enough to risk the healing sleep, or it would take him days longer to recover.

  Fucking American.

  McKinnon had been his bane even before Hirsch became a vampire, back in his days as a Gestapo major in Occupied France. Even as Hirsch hunted members of the French underground, McKinnon had helped them. Using his vampire powers, the American had been a major thorn in the Reich’s side, killing German soldiers, disrupting communications, destroying equipment.

  A little hobby Ridgemont encouraged in the name of keeping McKinnon’s edge sharp.

  Finally, Hirsch received a tip that the Underground’s mysterious superman worked for an Englishman. It wasn’t hard to track him down from there. Taking a squad of German soldiers, Gerhard headed for Ridgemont’s country chateau to arrest both foreigners as spies.

  He’d just threatened his way past the maid when Ridgemont strolled down the stairs, a thin, terrifying smile on his face. “Well now, wouldn’t you make an interesting addition to the family? A little sibling rivalry would do McKinnon a world of good…”