Hearts Aflame Collection: 4-Book Bundle (3 page)

Less than an hour later, Garrett reached the
first of his destinations. A simple motel in the middle of Georgia.
He checked into the clean—if not Spartan—room, drove his truck to
the front door and bundled the vampire woman inside, and cuffed her
to bed rail with one of the handcuffs she’d carried with her.

On the trip, she’d threatened to wake at
least once. He’d given her anther shot but now worried that it had
been too much. She lay insensate on the bed, her chest moving only
just so to retrieve breath. He sat on the floor across from the
bed; head leaned back against the wall, his lids falling low over
his eyes as he watched her. Just as no doubt, she and her friends
had waited for him that morning at the diner, he waited for her
now.

It didn’t take long.

Her waking happened in much the same way he’d
watched his sire emerge from sleep. One moment, the slow almost
imperceptible breath of rest, then in an eye blink, complete
awareness. The woman saw him immediately, rattled the cuffs around
her wrists as she shot up into a sitting position.

“Enjoy your rest while you can,” she said.
“It’ll be the last you ever have.” Even after a drugged sleep, her
voice was fierce. Teeth flashing white with wicked-looking fangs
beyond her red lips.

“Why are you hunting me?” He asked the
question although he really wanted to ask her why he was so drawn
to her. Why he couldn’t stop looking at her.

“Are you stupid as well as clanless?” She
spat the last word as if it was the worse possible thing any
vampire, or any one, could be.

“Assume I am stupid.” He stood up from the
floor and took the chair instead. Despite her imprisoned state, she
was obviously a powerful creature, her eyes burning with both
authority and fury. He wanted to put himself on more or less an
even level with her. Or as much as could be with her being chained
up and him having the key.

The woman shook her head, sending the thick
rain-dark hair spilling away from her face and down her shoulders.
Garrett couldn’t ignore how good she looked in his shirt. The
buttons undone down to just between her lusciously large breasts.
The dewy smoothness of her skin from throat to cleavage. The way
the shirt rode up her sleek thighs as she struggled. His cock
stirred again as he cursed himself under his breath.

The woman looked at him contemptuously. “You
are a lone vampire wreaking havoc on human and vampire life. We
cannot allow that to happen. You either join with our clan or die.
Those are your two choices.”

“But what if I haven’t been scourging the
humans? What if I haven’t seen a vampire this close since my sire
was killed? Then what?”

“Impossible. Rogue vampires among our kind
are deadly and uncontrolled. Only the reins of a community with
other vampires prevent us from being ravening beasts.” She sneered
at him. Her expressing that she thought he was lying to her.

“I am not that, woman. I keep to myself. I
feed from willing humans rarely enough and get my regular blood
from the butcher.”

“You are lying.” her eyes narrowed. “We know
of your dead master, Garrett of Grayson. We know he cut a swathe
through the human population of Chicago then moved you here to
continue the same.”

“He was my sire, not my master.” Garrett said
quietly. “And he and I are not the same.”

“If you and he are not the same then release
me. Show me you are not a vampire killer.”

Garrett thought about it for mere moments
before he was on his feet and walking across the room to her. She
gasped when he was close to her, then bending to unlatch her hands.
The smell of her was intoxicating as he worked the key into the
lock. Her hair like smoke from a fragrant fire, the flesh of her
bare thigh pressing against him, warming him, hardening him even
more.

“Fool!”

She flew at him with her fists once he was
free. Garrett had anticipated her attack, had even longed for it in
a small part of himself. Her fist slammed into his face, instantly
splitting his lip. She battered at him, relentless, wicked, and he
allowed her to do it, grabbing her to him when she pulled back. She
pummeled his stomach, his face, his kidneys, while he only gripped
her, blocking her from doing only the worst damage. She moved with
a deadly grace that awed him, matching him strength for strength
despite the drugs surely running through her system.

He could feel his blood splashing over his
skin, healing in seconds after the skin was split, but still the
sheets under them turned red from her anger. Then Garrett couldn’t
take any more, she was taking longer than he thought to tire. He
gripped her waist, holding her close, fought to twist her arms
behind her back. She grunted and cursed at him. Twisted and
wrestled him in the bed. Spat wicked curses. The smell of his blood
was high in the room. Did she smell it yet? Did it affect her?

Garrett’s hand curved around the back of her
head, shoving her mouth into his throat where her sharp nails had
opened him. She stiffened. Then her hands uncoiled from their
fists, clutching at his sides. She moaned what sounded like a
denial. Then her mouth fastened on his throat. Garret clenched his
teeth against a moan although his hips surged up, his hardness
hunting for the sheath of her softness. Her fangs slid into his
neck. He groaned, gripping her even more firmly.

The pleasure of her bite turned his cock to
pure steel. He thrust against her even she sucked his throat,
drinking him up. She made a soft noise into his skin. A sound of
amazement. Of pleasure. He dropped onto his back in the bed. She
followed him, straddling him; her mouth attached to him like it
would never leave. Her hips moved on top of his. Undulating on top
of his clothed cock as she took his blood. He grabbed her hips.

On his way from the cabin, he’d fed again,
drinking quickly from a young runaway who bargained away pints of
her blood for the money he gave her. Garrett always made sure the
girl found pleasure in his arms even as he’d drunk from her nearly
to the point of no return. But he’d stopped himself in time.
Withdrew his fangs from her body, licked her skin to seal the
bite.

The vampire woman seemed intent on drinking
every drop of the young woman’s flesh blood from him. Garrett
grabbed her hair, pulled her away from his neck.

She gasped as he yanked her by the hair from
his throat.

“What are you?” The vampire woman stared at
him in amazement as she licked her lips, eyes rolling back in her
head in ecstasy. “You taste so good!” She shivered, visibly
stopping herself from leaping at his throat again. She panted
heavily, the fabric over her breasts pulled tights, nipples hard
and tight beneath Garrett’s gaze.

“I’m the one you tried to kill earlier.
Remember?”

She reached for him, seeming unable to help
herself. “What are you doing to me?”

“Nothing you don’t want.” Garrett pulled her
close again.

She latched her mouth to his, licking the
blood from his healed lip. The woman moaned, traced the seam of his
lips, brushing herself into him as they kissed. Garrett kissed her
back fiercely, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, tasting her.
She tasted of his blood, of an unfamiliar wildness. He found
himself growling, fingers digging into her hips, shoving up against
her.

She ripped away his shirt, hands pressing
into his muscular chest, taking his nipples with her fingers as her
sex ground into him. The scent of her arousal was hot in the room.
She moaned against his mouth, pressing closer, her fingers digging
into him in desperation. Garrett had tempted her with his blood,
now he was the one on fire for her.

Chapter Four

Tahlia was on fire. The vampire she had spent
the last five months tracking had defeated her. Not with his fists
or guns or his wily tongue. He had done it with his blood. It
tasted like ambrosia. As she’d fought him, she’d gradually become
aware of the rich smell of his blood as it rose up on his skin
under her fists and nails. It smelled of all the good things she’d
enjoyed as a human. Baking bread. Night-blooming red roses. Sex on
a rainy day. His blood had smelled so good that she had to taste
it. Liquid pleasure. Her heart kicked wildly in her chest.

Why was this happening? The question swam to
the surface of her mind for a moment. But quickly lost its way and
fell once more beneath the onslaught of her desire.

She writhed against him, sucked his tongue,
and rubbed her aching nipples along his chest. Her fingers dug into
his bare skin, fumbled at his zipper. He was hard and throbbing
against her hand through the thin jeans, and then he was bare and
soft in her palms. A silken hardness. Tahlia thumbed him. She
rubbed her finger over the weeping slit, roughly caressing the head
of his manhood.

He moaned into her mouth. “Woman!”

Under the shirt she wore, her body was bare.
Her sex was swollen and dripping for him. She whimpered, wanting
him inside her. Wanting him more than she’d ever wanted anything or
anyone in her life, even blood. She felt his hand at her entrance,
fingers probing her wetness. She moaned as he caressed her
clitoris, dipped a seeking finger inside her. Tahlia’s fingers
tightened at the back of his neck. The other hand tightened around
his cock. She panted in anticipation of his manhood inside her;
pressed to her.

Garrett Grayson growled at her again, grabbed
her. He flipped her over in the bed, until she was the one under
him. He pinned her hands above her head, denying her touch on his
thickly throbbing cock.

“No!” she gasped. “I need you.”

He growled again, reached between their
bodies, aligning his thickness with her slick heat.

“Then you’ll have me!” He thrust into
her.

They both groaned. A long and deep sound that
tumbled in the small room and reverberated over Tahlia’s skin. She
shuddered. He was hard and deep inside her, a throbbing pressure
that made her breath catch, made her sex clutch wetly around
him.

She knew everything about this man. The place
where he slept. The vampire who had turned him. What his human life
had been like before the vampire Grayson had taken him. She knew
that he was a loner and she had been ordered to kill him. But she
never knew another vampire would feel this good between her thighs.
She never knew blood could taste so sweet until she’d felt the hot
spurt of his in her mouth. Tahlia trembled as he took her, and
opened her legs wider. Her sex swam with desire for him.

She shoved her hands in his hair, kissed him
deeply, gripping him tightly to her. “What are you doing to
me?”

“Loving you!” he gasped.

She thrust up to meet his thick manhood as a
vicious heat coursed through her entire body. He plunged into her
again and again, pressing into her clitoris, slamming pleasure into
her. It wasn’t natural, what she felt. It wasn’t. But she was
helpless against it. By the blood, his cock between her legs was
sweet!

Tahlia threw her head back as orgasm lashed
through her. She raked her nails down his back and Garrett howled,
his body bucking between her legs. His cool sperm jetting fiercely
inside her. And he kept moving his hips, nudging her clitoris until
she cried out again, clutched him, wailed as another orgasm shook
her body.

She squeezed her eyes shut, quivering.
Garrett gasped softly into her throat, saying soft words in a
language she’d never heard before.

“Damn, you feel good.” Slowly, he pulled away
from her, drew his softening manhood from her slick passage.

Tahlia could only lay on the bed with her
body twitching from the aftershocks of her orgasm. What had she
just done? What had the loner vampire done to her?

“What did you do to me?” she asked again.

He rolled onto his back next to her, his
breath coming heavily. “I did nothing but enjoy you just as you
enjoyed me,” he said. His voice was deep and rough, as if he wasn’t
used to talking. A loner’s voice.

She stiffened at the reminder of what he was
and why she had gone searching for him in the first place. Tahlia
sat up in the bed. He lay beside her completely unafraid, his
golden eyes molten with satisfied desire. But there was something
strange about those eyes. Something unnaturally bright, even for a
vampire. His eyes burned against his dark skin.

“What are you?”

He slowly turned his head to look at her,
blinking as he slowly focused all of his attentions on her. Tahlia
wanted to jump up, grab the clothes he had put on her body and flee
from the room. But she couldn’t. All she could do was stare into
the mesmerizing eyes of the creature who’d made love to her in a
way that no one ever had. Hotly. Possessively. Even now, the memory
of his touch was like a brand all over her skin.

“What are you?” she asked again.

The corner of his mouth tilted up, wickedly.
“I am an outsider,” he said.

He sat up in the bed and reached out for her,
touching her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. Heat moved
through her in the wake of his touch. She gasped as that heat
settled into her stomach, pouring down between her thighs. She
wanted him again.

As her body readied to receive him again,
Tahlia pulled away. Or tried to. But she was frozen by his touch.
Like in the clearing when she and the other hunters had lured him,
she was mesmerized by his golden eyes. Now that the passion between
them had been sated for now, a new, rational part of her brain
began to function, began to see clearly before where it had
not.

“You’re a witch!” A witch who had been turned
into a vampire.

She gasped it like an accusation. Her hand
fisted and flew to her chest. “You’re....” Then she shook her head.
“How come the Hunters did not know that?”

He drew his hand away from her face,
frowning. “I’m on my own for a reason, woman. I don’t kill. I just
want to be left alone.”