A_Little_Harmless_Fascination (26 page)

“So, when are you and Mr. Right Cross in there going to get
married?”

She shrugged. “He’s going back to the mainland. This was
just a fling.”

There was a beat of silence. “Uh, no it isn’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That man almost felled me with a punch. I’m not that small,
but there was a lot of rage behind that hit.”

She shrugged that off. “Conner has a real sense of right and
wrong.”

“There was more to it than that, I promise. If Justin hadn’t
been there, I think Conner might have beaten me unconscious.”

Why did that make her so happy? “Really?”

“Yeah, what has he said about staying?”

She sighed. “I’m too afraid to ask.”

“You? Jillian Sawyer, the girl who fought my mother for a
gun, who punched her date in the nose, and told Grandmother that she was an
uptight, selfish bitch? You’re afraid?”

She pulled her legs up and wrapped her one good arm around
them. The fear that had been riding her since she’d gotten out of the hospital
now hit her full force. Since they’d been home, Conner had done nothing more
than kiss her. “What if he tells me he’s leaving? That would just kill me.”

He leaned forward and brushed her braids back from her face.
“It wouldn’t kill you.”

“I’ve never been in love before. I don’t know how to handle
it. What if he tells me it was just for fun?”

“Then Justin and I will beat the shit out of him.”

She laughed even as she felt a little tear escape. “Okay.”

She looked into his blue eyes, the expression serious.

“Don’t take a chance and let him disappear from your life.
You deserve to be happy. Plus, since Justin and I aren’t into raising our own
kids, we want some more nieces and nephews to spoil. Especially me, because my
side of the family kind of sucks except for you.”

She laughed.

“Go get him, Jillian.”

She leaned forward. “You’re kind of cool, cuz.”

She gave him a kiss on the cheek and went in search of
Conner. She didn’t find him in her area of the house, but when she looked
outside, his rental car was still parked beside her cousin’s bike. Footsteps
sounded upstairs, so she knew he was there.

With each step up the staircase, her heard sunk a little.
The courage her cousin had spoken of now seemed to be dissolving. She reached
the landing and took a deep breath before knocking.

“Come in.”

She pushed the door open. He wasn’t in the living area, but
she heard him in the bedroom. Following the noise, she found him there, his
bags half full of his things. Her heart sank.

“You’re packing.”

He didn’t look up from his task. “Yes.”

“I didn’t know you planned on…” She swallowed the words.
Just saying that he was leaving would hurt too much. Tears clogged her throat.

“Well, it’s the only solution.”

She felt her heart tear, but she would be damned if she would
let him see it. “Fine.”

“You’re going to need a new bed.”

He zipped up his case and set it beside the dresser and
looked at her for the first time. He didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked
furious. She glanced at the bed behind him.

“What did you do to it?”

“Nothing, but if you think I’m going to sleep on a fucking
double bed, you’re crazy.”

For a second, she didn’t compute what he said. “What?”

“I said I hate doubles. I’m a big man. And for the things I
want to do to you, we need a bigger bed. Hell, we need a bigger bedroom. We’re
going to have to renovate the house.”

She shook her head, trying to figure out what he was saying.
“Wait, back up. Who said you were staying here? And who the hell said you were
staying in my bed?”

“You did.”

“I did not.”

“You did the night you told me you loved me. All bets were
off then.”

She would have settled her hands on her hips if her arm
wasn’t in a sling. The nerve of the man. “So that means you have the right to
move in with me?”

“Well I love you too, you idiot, so yeah, it does. It means
we get married and have kids,” he shouted at her.

Silence followed the storm, and she stared at him. He looked
so unhappy, she almost laughed. “You love me?”

“Yes, although I have no idea why. Jesus, woman, I put up
with a lot, but this has got to take the cake.”

She snorted.

“And don’t laugh.”

Something tickled her throat. Instead of a laugh, though, a
sob rose to the surface, catching them both off guard.

“Oh, baby, don’t,” he said as he fell to his knees in front
of her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He rested his head against her
stomach. “I’m sorry. I’ve been an ass.”

Jillian tried to stop the tears, but she couldn’t. Her eyes
were overflowing with them. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head.
Conner lifted his face to look at her.

“I think I knew from the beginning I cared for you, but it
wasn’t until you told me you loved me that I realized how much I wanted that.
Wanted you…forever.”

She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “Can you tell me
why you haven’t touched me since I got out of the hospital?”

He rose then and pulled her into his embrace, being careful
of her injured arm. “I was afraid if I touched you that I would expect too
much. After almost losing you, the man in me wanted to claim you all over
again. It’s stupid, but with your injury, we have to be careful.”

She looked up at him. “We can be careful.”

He opened his mouth, but she rose up and brushed her lips
over his.

“I promise to be gentle.”

He laughed at that. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

She stepped away and tugged her shirt over her head slipping
it easily over her arm. Then, she smiled at him. “Come on.”

He pushed his suitcase onto the floor and laid her down on
the bed. He lay beside her, resting his head on his hand. “I really love you,
Jillian.”

“I love you, too, Conner.”

He brushed her braids back from her face as he leaned down
to kiss her. He worked his way down, licking and nipping at her flesh as he
pulled her pants off her body. Settled between her legs, he looked up at her.

“There is one thing I can expect from my sub right now.”

“Really?” she asked, her voice husky even to her own ears.

“You don’t get to come unless I give you permission,” he
said as he leaned his mouth closer to her pussy. He teased her then, his tongue
driving her out of her mind until she was begging for relief. When he finally
took her, they rode the crest together as they gave themselves over to the
ecstasy.

Coming this July, Melissa Schroeder introduces you to
a entirely new world of vampires in Victorian England. Amongst the glittering
ton, evil lurks.

Enjoy the entire first chapter of By Blood: Desire.

A man with a secret.

Nicodemus Blackburn has seen the best and worst of mankind. Five
hundred years of dealing with them teaches the vampire to be very wary of the
creatures. Unfortunately, alarming events leave him no choice but to enter the
world of the ton to hunt a rogue vampire—one who is making his own army of
blood thirsty vampires. Searching for the villain is not the worst of his
troubles. That can be laid at the feet of bluestocking Lady Cordelia
Collingsworth.

A woman on a mission.

Cordelia has always been an outcast, even in her own family.
She has forged her way in the world with her ability to write, and Nico
Blackburn is the focus of her next article. Before she can obtain any
information about the mysterious man, she is pulled headlong into a scandal
that leaves her with no choice but to marry Nico—a man with dangerous secrets.
 

A passion that
consumes them both.

Thrust into a world she knows nothing of, Cordelia finds
herself falling in love with a man who claims to be a vampire. As their passion
grows, so does the danger around them and Nico will have to call on all of his
powers to protect the one thing he has realized he cannot live without: his
opinionated, infuriating, and thoroughly delectable wife.

By Blood: Desire

Prologue

Late in Queen
Victoria’s Reign

“He was Made?” Malik asked.

Nicodemus Blackburn did not look at his friend, but nodded
and continued to clean the blood from beneath his fingernails. The only sound
in the dank room was the splashing of water.

“How old?”

"I would say less than two months. Definitely not
completely transitioned."

Silence. When Malik didn't respond, Nico glanced at him. His
friend’s face passive, his eyes cold. They had learned long ago Malik would be
the whipping boy for every damned Made vampire.
 

"He was completely out of control. The woman..."
Nico closed his eyes and swallowed back the fresh wave of nausea that
threatened to bubble up. In five hundred years, he had never seen anything so
brutal, so bestial. He had killed Mades before, but never happened upon one of
their kills. He opened his eyes to find his friend with a knowing look on his
face. "She did not die easily."

If possible, Malik's expression grew colder. "Meaning
he raped her to death."

There was nothing to be said, for nothing would stop what
was going to happen, what was already happening. Nico grabbed a linen cloth and
started to dry his hands.

"We need to find out what the bloody hell is happening.
This one had no connection to family. There has to be a reason for the Made
vampires to be popping up all over the countryside"

Malik nodded. "I've heard more rumbling amongst the
Borns. Not to mention the Carrier woman they found dead in London two nights
ago. There might be trouble for my kind again."

Nico shrugged and retrieved another shirt. "I don't
think you need to worry."

"Don't lie."

"You are always exempt from these witch hunts. You
trace your roots back further than mine. Anyone who has made it through
transition has no problem. They never lose control."

A cynical smile curved Malik's lips. "True. And so I
shouldn't have to worry at all. But the youngest generation doesn't remember
the Inquisition...they don't remember how many of us fought on your side. They
will be out for blood."

Nico faced him. Irritation and worry gripped his stomach in
a cold, hard fist. What Malik said was true. Before the Inquisition, the Borns
regularly hunted for Mades, killing them before they gained control of their
new powers. He could not defend what had happened in the past, only work to fix
the present.

But, that would come later. Nico could still smell the
corpse’s blood on his body. If he closed his eyes he could remember everything.
The mutilation of the Carrier woman, the sickening feel of shoving a piece of
wood into the vampire’s flesh. The word Suprema still echoed in his ears.

It was worse than it had been almost four hundred years ago.
God, he did not want to do that ever again. But he would...he knew that down to
his core. There was no way to avoid it. If he allowed someone else to lead the
hunt, it would become a massacre of every Made vampire in England.

 
He opened his eyes
and looked at his best friend. They had seen the worst mankind could throw at
them and the worst. Nico feared they were about to see things neither of them
were prepared for.

“The trail leads to London,” Malik said.

“Yes. My father agrees.”

“Your father is the only family leader with any
intelligence.”

 
True, for he was the
oldest of the four family patriarchs that comprised the vampire clans of
England and Scotland.

“In father’s mind, he is the only one who matters. But, in
this case he is correct. London would be easier…the maker could resort to the
lower classes and it would not attract any attention.”

“Do you have any idea who it might be?”

Nico shook his head. “Not a clue. All I know is the
sightings in the country have dwindled and those we have found all lead to
London.”

“I hate London.”

Nico smiled at his friend’s irritation. Both of them hated
London, the ton and all of their idiocy. But his father had asked him to go,
and Nico could not refuse. "We go to London."

Malik studied him for a moment, and then nodded. "We go
to London.”

Chapter One

He was avoiding her again.

Lady Cordelia Collingsworth searched through the milling
crowd in the Smyth’s ballroom as irritation shot through her blood. This was
the third night in a row he had lost her. The mysterious man was making it
impossible to discover anything about him...or his shady businesses.

“Lady Cordelia.”

She grimaced before she could stop herself. Viscount Hurst.
He had been dogging her steps at every event for the last fortnight. He always
appeared at her side, a genial smile on his face, and pretty compliments. Drat
the man. She smoothed her expression and turned to face the viscount.

Cordelia understood why he had been labeled “The Catch” by
the ladies of the ton early this season. Just thirty years old, he sported a
strong physique. Blonde hair and deep brown eyes had all the women sighing, or
so she had been told. He was pleasant enough with that square jaw and all his
proper manners, but there was something about him she did not like. Something
that made her blood chill every time she came in contact with him. Even in the
overwhelming heat of the ballroom, she could not seem to keep herself warm in Hurst’s
presence.