Carinian's Seeker Read online

  “What time is it?” she asked, glancing down at her bare wrist. She’d forgotten her watch was already packed in her overnight bag at the hotel.

  “It’s almost seven-thirty.” Bix raised his hand to get the waiter’s attention and paid the check. “I have a plane to catch, so perhaps I’d better go.”

  “Yeah, me too. I’m packed, but I have to…uh, yeah. I have a plane to catch, I mean,” she rambled. She hated when she rambled. It was a nervous thing. She clamped her lips shut, and then remembered her manners. “Oh, goodness, I’m sorry. I didn’t thank you for taking care of my dinner, Jon.”

  “Bix.”

  “Right, sorry. Uh, I mean Bix,” she blurted out nervously. Geez, I’m a babbling idiot with this guy. On a subtle but steadying breath, her chin went up as she took, well sort of took control of her nervousness. “Listen, I’ve gotta run. It was nice to meet you, Bix.” She pulled a business card out of the PDA case in her purse and pushed it across the table. “If you’re ever in San Diego, give me a call. Good night.”

  “Wait, I’ll walk you to your car.”

  She frowned at his commanding tone. Not harsh, but as if he expected her to simply obey him, and do as he wanted with no question. Strangely, she wanted to yield to his wishes, but shook it off with practiced ease. Besides, she was going home tomorrow and would probably never see him again in her life, so why start something she had no intention of continuing? But damn she wanted to so badly. Scooting out of the booth, her body cooled with an unexpected sense of loss.

  “Thanks, but that’s okay. I’ll be fine. Good night.” Coat in hand, Carin headed for the front door, needing to reconcile her reeling emotions and put some space between herself and this all-too-alpha male who made her want to forget all measure of self-control.

  She reached out to push open the glass doors when a large, slightly calloused hand landed gently on top of hers. Bix. She turned around and glared at him.

  “It’s dark out and I’m a bit old-fashioned when it comes to a lady walking alone in the dark.” Bix felt her shock at both his presence and her reaction to his touch. Her shiver of fear was arousing. The scent of it tickled his nose and… Wait. Her fear was arousing? What the hell was wrong with him? He reluctantly removed his hand from hers, backed up a step and pushed the door open. Shooing her through and into the parking lot, he allowed himself a half-smile as Carin projected her confusion.

  She didn’t understand this flicker and buzz between them any more than he did. He let his concern flow out of his mind and concentrated instead on the way her tight butt moved underneath her workout clothes as she walked to her car. Oh God, not good. Perhaps looking up at the lamppost was a better idea.

  * * *

  Carin’s stomach dropped into her shoes when a glance into the rear-view mirror told her Bix still tailed her. She felt hunted, yet strangely exhilarated by his pursuit, if that’s what it was. An odd combination of fear and eagerness warred in her mind. With the restaurant a mile behind her, good old-fashioned fear pushed everything else aside. Her cell phone rang just as she considered dialing 9-1-1.

  “Hey there. Where are you staying?”

  The medium bass of his voice floated across the airwaves and through her earpiece, soothing and massaging her senses. Her panic dissipated but didn’t disappear.

  “At the Ramada, right off of I-25 and 120th.”

  “You’re kidding,” he continued in the same relaxed voice. “I’m at the same hotel. I’ll bet you were getting worried wondering if I was last week’s hatchet murderer following you around.”

  “I was not worried,” she growled mutinously, glaring daggers at him through the phone. When his chuckle grew into outright laughter, her frown gave way to a reluctant smile. “Okay, fine, I was getting a little nervous. There, you happy?”

  Her grumbling made him laugh harder. “Yes, actually, I am happy. Means you have common sense, woman.”

  Once at the hotel, he parked right next to her, got out of his car and waited while she shut off the engine, popped the trunk and hit the automatic locks on the Mustang. As soon as she cracked her door, he was there to open it for her. She knew her expression was openly skeptical as she secured the vehicle and dug her gym bag out of the trunk.

  “I’ll take that for you.” With an easy manner, he reached out and took the duffel from her fast freezing fingers. She stiffened as his hand brushed hers and her bemused expression set him off on a new round of laughter.

  “What’s the matter now?” he teased. “Never met a gentleman before?”

  She rolled her eyes and gave him her best “what do you think”, one-sided smirk. In all her thirty-six years, she’d never met a man who held doors, pulled out chairs or offered to carry her bag. Or set her blood pulsing in her ears, and sent butterflies winging up and down her spine. And the simmering, appreciative looks he’d passed her way over dinner. Lord, it was too much.

  “May I see you to your room, Carinian?”

  Hell no. She just didn’t think she could continue to act right if he got anywhere near her room. But by the time she’d managed to stutter out all her arguments they were standing in front of her door.

  Bix set her gym bag on the typical hotel-brown carpet, reached out and gently took her by the hand. She looked down to where his fingers stroked hers, liking the contrast between his lightly tanned skin and her darker cocoa tones.

  “Carin?”

  “Yes?” she answered absently, her mind focused on the slightly rough skin of the palm holding hers securely. And what happened to the formal Carinian of only a few seconds ago? The more informal he became the more her goose bumps came out to play. What was up with that?

  “May I kiss you good night?”

  Always the gentleman. She nodded and waited anxiously as his head descended at a leisurely pace, like one big slow-motion picture. When he finally reached her lips she was almost giddy with anticipation, wondering what his gorgeous mouth would feel like, taste like.

  He pulled her close and took her lips in a sweet caress. The kiss began innocent enough, but she knew, knew he wanted more than a chaste meeting of the mouths. He wanted to deepen the kiss, to ravish her. To press her up against the wall as his blood pounded through his body.

  Now how the hell did she know that?

  His hands slipped from her waist up to her shoulders and held her there a moment before he broke away, his breathing harsh and unsteady.

  Bix couldn’t believe the tremendous amount of effort it took to hold himself in check. He wanted nothing more than to rip her clothes off and take her right there in the hallway up against her door, and then hold her to his heart while his fingers tenderly stroked through the cottony curls at the nape of her neck. To softly kiss a path down the side of her neck, reveling in her natural scent as he made his way to her pulse point. He locked his knees to keep them from shaking as he forced his body to obey his mind. God, his fangs throbbed and hummed beneath their sheaths. The fine tendons that controlled their movement pulled taut, begging him to bare them, to sink them along with his throbbing cock deep into the sweet depths of her body.

  What was it about this woman that made him want to rut like some untamed animal, then treat her with such tenderness? It was damned strange. And sexually frustrating.

  He bid her good night, licked his lips and grinned at the dreamy-eyed look on her face. With a gentle kiss to her palm, he stepped away and strode down the hall. For the first time in his life, Bix wished he wasn’t well-endowed. His damned dick rubbed painfully against his zipper as Carin’s loudly projected thoughts followed him down the hallway.

  You’re so sexy. Stay and make love with me.

  Twice he almost stopped and gave in to her unvoiced wishes. Her next thought slammed into his brain and his back stiffened in anger as his feet ground to a halt.

  What would be the harm? I’ll never see you again in my life anyway.

  What? Anger welled up in his gut, sudden and fierce. A feral growl erupted from his throat as
he whirled around and glared back towards her hotel room door. It closed with a quiet snap and he stood there a moment just to make sure she stayed inside, alone. The urge to scout the hotel for any other male vamp in the vicinity overwhelmed him. Not an ideal inclination for an undercover Seeker.

  Bix’s mouth dropped open as he looked down at himself in alarm. His chest was puffed up, his teeth bared and his lips pulled back tightly at these sudden feelings of possessiveness. His fangs had slipped free and were visible to anyone who might happen to walk down the hall. Was he in someone else’s skin? He hadn’t bared his fangs “accidentally” in, what, a hundred years? What the hell was going on?

  Walking the short distance to his own door, he dug down into his jacket pocket for the keycard to his room as he thought on Carin’s last words.

  The woman thinks she’ll never see me again, eh? We’ll just see about that.

  Chapter Three

  Before he could close the door to his unexceptional hotel room, his cell phone rang. He knew it wasn’t Carin calling him back. The special ring tone identified the caller as a member of V.C.O.E.—the Vampire Council of Ethics.

  He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it carelessly over the only chair in the room, and then sat on the edge of the bed and toed off his shoes before answering. A silky sweet voice reminiscent of smooth jazz music floated across the line to him. The voice was deep for a woman, but sensual. It fit her perfectly. Too bad Bix couldn’t stand the bitch.

  “Have you acquired the target?”

  Bix ground his back teeth on a deep breath and ignored the implied insult. God, he didn’t feel like doing this right now.

  “You will not question me, Natasha. I’m more than capable of doing my job. In fact,” he said for probably the fiftieth time, “I’ve been dressing without my mother’s aid for quite a long time. Longer than you’ve been alive, actually.”

  “Now, now, Jon. You’re getting testy in your old age,” Natasha purred. “As the V.C.O.E. Liaison for the Western territories, I’m just doing my job. You know that, don’t you, lover?”

  Lover? Would she ever give up? Resting his elbows on his knees, he stretched his neck from side to side and forced his body to relax. When he tuned back in to the voice on the cell phone it was droning on about some boring piece of nothing or another. He took charge of the conversation with his annoying Liaison and brought it back to business.

  “I have acquired the target, Natasha. You may report to the Council that she is scheduled to fly back to San Diego tomorrow, just as they arranged,” he drawled in the most bored voice he’d ever heard himself speak. “I’ll be sure to contact you as soon as Dr. Derrickson leads me to Sidheon.”

  “Dr. Derrickson, is it? Surely you’ve gotten past the formality of last names with her, Jon,” Natasha said cattily.

  Bix didn’t bother to answer. He put the phone on speaker mode and tossed it on the bed. His pants hit the floor, followed by his shirt and underwear. Naked, he ducked into the small bathroom and turned on the shower.

  While the water warmed, he strolled to the closet and pulled out his only set of clean clothes for tomorrow. The dirty laundry was stuffed inside a duffel bag and tossed next to the door for easy retrieval before his jaunt to the airport in the morning. After a lengthy silence, a hard, angry female voice crackled over the phone line. Natasha. Hell, he’d almost forgotten she was there.

  “The temporary house in San Diego is all set up, Jon. Alaan will pick you up at the airport and assist you as needed.”

  Bix called over his shoulder with a distracted, “Fine,” glad his best friend would work this case with him. Excellent. He ducked into the bathroom again and flipped on the faucet over the small sink. “What about the territory leaders in California? They know I’m coming?”

  “All taken care of. I don’t have any additional intel other than what I sent you yesterday before you flew to Colorado. If anything else comes up, I’ll try to get it to you before you board your plane to San Diego tomorrow.”

  “Yep,” he mumbled his response around his toothbrush.

  “Good luck, Jon. I look forward to seeing you when you report back to headquarters.”

  “It may be a while,” Bix mumbled, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “If there’s nothing else, Natasha, good night.”

  “Good night, lover.”

  Bix clicked off the speakerphone and snapped the unit shut. It landed on top of his bag at the door as he headed for the shower. His hand settled on his left shoulder, digging into the muscles there. Odd. It was tight, sore and pulsing. He hadn’t worked his shoulders this week at all, but the pain was acute.

  The bathroom filled with a fog of soothing steam. He stepped into the tub and yanked the shower curtain closed. The strong, hot spray of water pulsed over the muscles of his back and thighs as he searched inside himself for the source of his discomfort. His keen senses dipped below his skin, into his veins and slid along and through his muscles. When he searched the connective tissues of his throbbing shoulder there was nothing unusual. But if it was perfectly fine, why the hell was it so sore?

  He shut off the shower and headed to bed. Under the cool sheets and scratchy blankets, his thoughts settled on a beautiful woman with dark brown eyes and skin, and a body to die for. A body he wished he could cuddle up to right now.

  His fingers had itched all through dinner to bury themselves in her thick, curly hair to see if it was a soft as it looked. The short-sleeved tee she wore let him look his fill at smooth-as-velvet skin over sleek muscle. His thoughts strayed to the elegant curve of her neck. Keen ears had picked up the strong pulse beating there as they’d talked and laughed over their meal. He imagined the same beat now. Strong. Steady. His cock swelled and pulsed in time with the imagined thump of her heart.

  Hell, it was going to be a long night.

  * * *

  “You fool. Incompetent, idiotic fool,” Sidheon roared, not bothering to hide the sharp points of his fangs from the human trembling in front of him.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Sidheon, but I thought this cart was yours,” the little man stuttered, shrinking away from the very strong hand capable of snapping his neck like a chicken’s.

  “Well, it is not mine. If this is not my specimen cart then where the bloody hell is it?” Sidheon thundered. If it weren’t for the fact this man could be trusted to keep his secrets he’d have replaced him a long time ago, brilliant or not.

  “They were all lined up next to one another in the hallway. Everything looks so much alike. I—well, someone else must have taken your specimens by mistake. Or maybe the quality folks just got them mixed up. Don’t worry. I’ll find them, Dr. Sidheon. I’ll find them.” The little man bowed and scraped.

  “You had better, Dan, or I promise to peel your hide,” Sidheon hissed on a promise of pain. Lots and lots of pain as his incisors glowed a muted orange from the flame of the Bunsen burner on the lab table. He shooed the human away and watched him scurry towards the door, knowing the puny man was on the verge of peeing his pants.

  Sidheon strode out of his lab door, locked it behind him and made his way down the hallway. There were only four labs on this level and security up here was airtight. The cart couldn’t have gone far. He discreetly peeked through the small square window of each door, trying the handles as he passed. Where the hell were his experiments and all of his samples?

  He looked through the window of the last lab and caught sight of his cart, identifiable only by the purple bands around some of the tops on the glass vials tucked neatly into dozens of small boxes. The stainless steel cart sat unobtrusively off to the left side of the door leading into Dr. Carinian’s labs. Bloody hell.

  He pressed his forehead against the cold reinforced glass of the window, not bothering to try the door handle. If Dr. Carin wasn’t in her lab the doors stayed locked and dead bolted, even if she was in the building. Sidheon’s cool breath steamed up the window, momentarily obscuring the cart on the other side of the steel door. He needed to get
it back before the good doctor had a chance to explore too much.

  He hoped he wouldn’t have to kill her, at least not before he had the chance to fuck her. A perfect picture of her equally perfect body formed in his mind, prompting a bulge to form at the crotch of his pants. Sidheon licked his lips at the thought of her luscious curves and miles of smooth-looking skin. And her scent. Spicy, clean, invigorating. Like allspice and ginger. He’d seen her working out a couple of times in the company gym when she was working late. Smart and beautiful, a rare combination these days, the woman had the firmest, sexiest ass he’d ogled in ages, literally. Though he’d enjoyed her from a distance with only an occasional polite hello, perhaps he’d take it a step further, reveal his desire for her. Then maybe show his true nature? Play with her awhile, like a cat waiting to pounce on its favorite toy. Something he’d never contemplated with a human. But if she played nice, maybe he’d bless her with some of his cock before he gorged on her blood.

  Chapter Four

  Carin pushed the call button on the shiny double-doored elevator, smiling wistfully. Her mind drifted back to her trip to Colorado where she’d sat in a restaurant with Jon Bixler and talked about everything from favorite football teams to friends with fake boobies. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d felt so free or drawn to anyone who wasn’t family.

  An unexplainable sadness crept over her, realizing she’d probably never again see the man who’d made her laugh like a loon and treated her with so much kindness. She shook her head at her pity party, stuck her key into the elevator panel and pushed the button for the nineteenth floor. The doors were closing when someone called her name.

  “Dr. Derrickson? Hold the elevator please.”