He stretched an arm along the back of the seat, barely brushing against her long, blond hair. He wanted to bury his face in it and draw in her scent. He loved the smell of a woman’s hair, clean and warm and fragrant with whatever shampoo or perfume she used. It was one of his favorite parts of seducing a woman. And Magda had been right. He very much wanted to seduce Kathryn Hunter, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. The FBI agent wasn’t his usual type. Of course, some people would say he didn’t have a usual type, that his type was pretty much anyone female.
But that wasn’t true. Yes, he loved women, but he didn’t want to seduce every woman he met. He liked making them smile and laugh, liked bringing pleasure to a harassed woman’s night, if only for a few minutes. But that wasn’t seduction.
Seduction was the slow, exquisite game of persuading a beautiful woman to come into his arms. To dance with him, to share long and languorous kisses in front of a fire. He loved to stroke a woman’s body until she was trembling with desire, until she opened herself willingly, inviting him between her legs and into her body.
That’s what he wanted with Kathryn. But why? As Nick had said from the first, she was worse than a local cop, she was FBI, and that spelled trouble. Vampires had too many secrets to be consorting with federal agents of any kind. Sure, there were vampires toiling in the depths of Quantico, along with just about every other federal agency, but that was different. Those vampires had a clear allegiance to a master, who for most of them was Duncan as Vampire Lord over the Capital territory.
But Kathryn owed no allegiance to anyone but her government. For Lucas to seduce her, to let her see even the tiniest fraction of what made vampire society tick, to risk having that information carried back to her bosses in Quantico? Why would he desire such a thing?
Lucas crooked a finger and captured a lock of Kathryn’s hair. The answer was simple. Because he wanted her. Because she was tall and blond, with long legs and a terrific ass. Because she was smart and disciplined and always in control. A pain in the ass who would fight him tooth and nail for every inch of progress he made in this seduction, and he loved a challenge.
But also, because she’d come all this way and had risked the displeasure of her superiors to track down her brother. Because family was important to her, and her brother was the only family she had left. Because family was important to Lucas, too. And he had none.
Because she had a heart deeply buried beneath all that discipline, and before the night was over, he intended to steal it.
Chapter Nine
Kathryn tried to keep track of the turns they made, of how far they traveled. But even with a waning moon that was still mostly full, there was nothing to see beyond the dark windows of the big SUV. Maybe if she’d been from around here, if she’d hiked or camped in these hills, she’d have been able to conjure a map in her head of their location, but for a city girl from Virginia, the landscape was a monotonous blur of nothing in the middle of nowhere. Some part of her brain was clanging with alarm, telling her she should be worried about being way out here, all alone, with a bunch of vampires. But no matter which way she looked at it, she just didn’t believe that Lucas would hurt her. Yeah, he’d been less than honest, and he was definitely dangerous, but the kind of danger he represented to her had nothing to do with houses in the middle of nowhere.
She shifted a bit, exquisitely aware of Lucas’s arm on the seat behind her. It made her feel awkward and insecure, like being back in high school and not knowing if the boy was just stretching his arm or if he really liked her. Kathryn wasn’t that too-tall, gawky girl any longer, but she wasn’t exactly a femme fatale, either. She knew men noticed her. After all, she was a nearly six foot tall blonde, in excellent condition, with a reasonably pretty face. But it usually ended with the noticing. She was a little too self-assured, her college friends had told her, a little too cool. She frightened men off. As if she’d want a relationship with a man who was intimidated by any woman with a backbone.
Lucas wasn’t intimidated by her. He wasn’t intimidated by much of anything as far as she could tell.
Not that it mattered how Lucas felt about her. She wasn’t here to be seduced by anyone, much less someone who’d intentionally withheld critical information. That was the same as lying in her book. Even if the liar did come wrapped in a very sexy package. She sighed quietly and focused very hard on the meaningless shapes blurring past outside the car, trying to ignore the slight tug on her hair that told her Lucas was playing with it. Damn vampire.
They turned down a dirt road. It was much rougher and looser beneath the tires, and there were obvious dust clouds billowing past the windows. The big vehicle didn’t slow down at all, though, despite the occasional hard bump and the sound of rocks pinging against the undercarriage. Kathryn leaned toward the center of the SUV, trying to see out the tinted windshield. She thought there was a house up ahead, but couldn’t be certain.
“We’re almost there,” Lucas said, his deep voice melodic and smooth. Kathryn felt a tremor of desire skim along her nerves and moved back to her side of the seat. She couldn’t see anything anyway, and getting too close to Lucas undermined her determination to hate him.
Although, that wasn’t really true. She didn’t want to hate him. Quite the opposite. But she didn’t trust him. He lied as easily as he smiled. How could she have any kind of relationship with a man like that? Vampire, she reminded herself once more. He wasn’t a man at all.
The SUV came to a sudden stop, skidding a little bit on the dirt road. The driver shifted into parking gear and turned off the ignition. Kathryn quickly unbuckled her seatbelt, eager to be away from the enforced intimacy of the darkened back seat. She didn’t wait for Lucas, but popped open the door on her side and stepped out, coughing a little at the accumulated dust lingering in the air.
She looked around and saw they’d arrived at a house . . . of sorts. She couldn’t see much, but even the moonlight was enough for her to see that the structure was ancient by American standards. Not historic like the castles of Europe, as one of her favorite comedians would have said, but definitely built more than fifty years ago. Way more than fifty years, in this case. Either that or whoever had built it had a really lousy set of construction skills.
It appeared to be made of wood plank. It was small—she would guess no more than 1200 square feet at best—with a covered porch that was sagging both underfoot and overhead. The wood appeared dry and gray by moonlight, and she could only imagine it would be worse in the bright light of day.
Kathryn studied it doubtfully. This was where Lucas planned on having their private conversation? Did it even have plumbing? And what about heat? She hoped it didn’t use one of those wood-burning stoves, because those things smoked, and the smell was impossible to get out of her hair and clothes.
“It doesn’t look like much from out here,” Lucas murmured against her ear.
Kathryn managed to stifle most of her jump of surprise, but not all of it. She turned a glare on him, but he only winked playfully. Next time he snuck up on her like that, she was going to shoot him. Let him see how funny he found it then. Sneaky bastard.
Nicholas came around the side of the house. He’d apparently gone around back for something while she’d been, um, admiring the architecture. He hurried over to where she stood with Lucas and handed her the keys to her rental. She gave him a questioning look.
“It’s parked on the side of the house,” he told her with a quick wink. “The driver took a different route out of the city and beat us here.” He turned to Lucas. “My lord?”
“We’ll stay here,” Lucas responded to the unvoiced question. “You guys know the drill. Kathryn and I will be fine in the main house. Make the usual arrangements for morning.”
Main house? Kathryn thought to herself. There was something smaller than this? She turned her head, searching the surrounding area, but couldn’t see anything that resembled a living structure. Wait. Morning?
“Yes, Sire,” Nicholas was saying. “Should one of us perhaps remain with you, and—”
“I’ll be fine, Nick. Kathryn won’t shoot me, will you, a cuisle?”
Kathryn gave him a dirty look. Clearly she was going to need an Irish translator app for her phone. He’d used that particular word several times, and she could tell from the context that it was probably some sort of endearment, like sweetheart or honey. It had better be something like that. If it was babe or baby or, God forbid, anything like little one, she was going to set him straight. Just as soon as she figured out what he was saying.
“Kathryn?”
She smiled to herself. He sounded worried that she hadn’t responded right away to his question about shooting him. “No,” she said finally, letting regret flavor her reply, “I don’t plan to shoot you.”
He gave her a narrow look at her regretful tone, but told Nicholas, “Settle in for the night, Nick. You’ll know if I need you.”
Nicholas was plainly unhappy about the arrangement, and Kathryn wondered if he actually thought she was a danger to Lucas. But he followed orders, giving his boss a nod and disappearing around the back of the house.
“Where are they going?” she asked Lucas, as he started for the porch.
“There’s a bunk house out back. They’ll be quite comfortable.”
Kathryn doubted that. Just as much as she doubted she was going to be too comfortable in the main house, but what the hell. She’d come this far, and she wasn’t staying long anyway. She followed Lucas, stepping gingerly onto the sagging porch, imagining the narrow tip of her high heel going right through the boards if she wasn’t careful. But it was surprisingly firm, not even sagging under Lucas’s much greater weight as he strode to the front door and inserted a key. The door lock was very sturdy for such an old structure, and a closer look revealed that the doorframe had not only been reinforced, but the door was also more than it appeared. She was no locksmith, but . . . she tapped her knuckles on the door’s surface. It was steel.