The shivers hit her even harder. “The ferry won’t be back for a few more days.”
“The seaplane will be here in sixteen hours.”
Her panting stopped. Sixteen hours?
“It’s scheduled for a medical supply run then. We just have to get on that seaplane and fly off this island.”
Oh, was that all? “They’ll be watching.” They…the guards. The werewolves?
“Then we have to make sure they don’t stop us.” Said with grim certainty. “But first…” Then his hands were on her, pulling her toward him, pulling her shirt off.
“Wait! Stop!” Olivia shouted at the handsy-vamp. He’d saved her ass, yes, but that didn’t mean—
“You’re about to shake apart. The cold doesn’t do a thing to me, but it can hurt you. It can kill you.” His fingers brushed against her bare abdomen. “Now get na**d and let me help you.”
Okay, right, so this wasn’t about sex. The kiss under that stairwell had thrown her, and when he’d started to strip her, she’d assumed…Olivia cleared her throat. “You, um, can you turn around or something?”
“No.” He yanked her shirt up. Tossed it. Reached for the snap of her pants.
Olivia realized she’d lost her shoes some place in the ocean. She also slapped at his hands because he was not just going to yank her pants off.
“Olivia…” Her name was a growl. “I can help you.”
Another shiver rocked through her and she was pretty sure her teeth rattled.
“Vampires don’t feel cold like humans do.” He caught her hand, brought it up to his chest. His skin was warm, so wonderfully warm beneath her hand. “I can make it better for you. Let me help you,” he said once more.
She undid the snap of her pants. That warmth was too tempting, and she was freezing. She pushed the pants down but kept on her panties and her bra. Clothing rustled near her and she heard the slap of his wet garments hitting the rocks.
He came back to her a few seconds later. “Move back a bit. It’s flat behind you.”
She scooted back.
“And, love, you need to lose the sexy bra and scrap of panties.”
Olivia pretty much hated that he could see everything in the dark. “They stay on.”
His hands wrapped around hers and then—then she was tumbling down on top of him. Because he was lying on the flat, rough space, and she was now sprawled all over the vamp. He wrapped his arms around her even as her legs slid between his powerful thighs. He held her tightly but…carefully…and the heat of his body slowly sank into her.
Her mouth was against the curve of his shoulder, so close to the base of his neck. After their dive, he should have smelled of salt and the ocean, and he did, but, more than that, he had a rich, almost heady scent that seemed to seep into her.
He was warm and solid, and he surrounded her in that darkness. Silence swept over them as they were cocooned there, and slowly, so slowly, the tremors stopped sweeping over her.
But as the tremors subsided, she didn’t scramble off him. Olivia just kept taking in that delicious warmth as some of the terror she felt finally began to ebb. “Why do people think,” she murmured and her lips brushed over his neck as she spoke, “that vampires are cold?”
“Because the movies say we’re dead. The dead are cold. The dead don’t have hearts that beat.”
She could feel his heart racing.
“They say we have no passion.”
She could feel, um, something else pressing against her. She’d been aware of his heavy arousal from the moment he’d pulled her on top of him. There was really no missing it, especially since the vampire seemed to be very well endowed.
Though she did try to shift away from him a bit then.
He just pulled her right back against him. “But our hearts beat. We breathe. We live. We need.”
Need. The word seemed to echo around them.
“There’s something that I need right now,” he continued, his voice growing deeper, rougher, in the darkness. “Something I have to take.”
She pushed up but his hands were tight around her waist. “Shane?”
“Vampires are fast healers, so you can’t see where they cut me, and the blood was all washed away during our swim.”
Oh, no. No.
“I’m hungry,” those words were a deep, dark growl. “So f**king hungry…and I need you.”
In that instant, she was glad for the darkness because Olivia didn’t want to see his face—or his fangs. “Shane, no.”
“I need blood.” Deep, rumbling. “They took too much from me. If I’m going to protect us then I need you.”
Her heart was about to fly right out of her chest. “I’m scared.” Hushed. “I’ve never…never been bitten before.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
She wanted to believe that, but she didn’t.
“There can be pleasure in the bite.”
In her mind, she could only see the pictures from her files at Purgatory. The dead victims. “What if you can’t stop?”
“I’ve been a vampire longer than you can imagine.”
What?
“I can stop.” Certainty thickened his voice even more. “I will stop.” Then his right hand left her hip. Those fingers slid up her side, slowly, carefully, up and up…they slid around her bra and had her sucking in a sharp breath, but Shane didn’t touch her breast. That hand of his kept rising until his fingers curved around her throat. Her pulse raced beneath his touch. “I just need a little, just enough to boost my strength back up.”
He’d saved her, so didn’t she owe this to him? She’d just feel much better about all of this if she had a stake in her hand. Then I could make him stop.
“Maybe you’ll like it…”
She licked her lips.
“Maybe you’ll ask for my bite again.”
Olivia shook her head. There was no way she could imagine that. Wanting him to sink his fangs into her? No, thank you. “J-just a sip, all right? Then you’ll stop?”
“I need more than a sip.” There was such darkness in his words. “Need you.”
Her eyes squeezed shut—why, she didn’t know. She already couldn’t see anything. “Do it.”
He pulled her back down toward him, positioned her, held her easily. She felt his breath blow over her neck, and Olivia jerked in reaction.
“Easy,” he whispered. “I told you…you might like my bite.”