“Hmm?” Now he was nibbling at her throat. “Jammies?” The bastard knew she couldn’t say no to him. She sank her fingers into his hair, which was surprisingly silky, and stroked the back of his neck, so broad and strong, wanting him naked in her arms. Didn’t she deserve one last fling?
“What I said holds.” How she mustered the brain cells to speak, she had no idea. “I can’t be in any kind of relationship.”
Oh, he did not like that at all. She reached up and smoothed his brow with her hand. “But I would like to spend this night with you. Just this night.”
That was terrible. She sounded like a bitch, but it was all she had to offer. Gregor’s eyes darted back and forth over her face. God knew what he saw in her. Why did he even bother? Maybe this would piss him off, and they’d both be saved. Come on, Faustin, tell me to fuck off.
“I’ll take it,” he said, and she almost laughed aloud. It was hopeless. “Your place or mine?”
This wasn’t really happening, was it?. “Where’s your place?”
“I live at Tangiers.”
Intriguing. “Take me there.”
It was easy not to think about the future. Easy to drown in Gregor Faustin. The valet drove them to the club while they made out in the back seat. Maddy didn’t care that this stranger heard her panting, and could see them pawing each other in his rearview mirror.
The trip seemed to take no time at all, but when they pulled up in front of the club, and someone opened the door for her, she found her legs had turned to jelly. Gregor came around and picked her up, just like their first night together.
A steady throbbing pulse of music leaked out of the club. She fished in his breast pocket and found her glasses. A line of fashionable kids materialized on the sidewalk, smoking, posing—and staring at her.
“You don’t have to carry me, really, I can walk.” But she liked being in his arms, and didn’t really give a damn what the undernourished brats thought.
“I want to,” he said. “It’s traditional anyway.”
“Traditional how?”
Two gigantoid bouncers parted for them, nodding to Gregor. He deftly swung her to one side and stepped through the door. The volume of the music increased tenfold, and he shouted, “This is my castle.”
Inside, her first impression was stars—thick stars above in velvet blackness. These weren’t your tin foil prom stars, these were gorgeous nets of tiny lights, billions of them twinkling and blinking. In the distance she saw a series of graceful Moorish arches, and beyond them an immense, sunken space rolling with fog and heaving with bodies. Through one arch she could see a gilded birdcage swinging above the fog, a girl writhing inside it.
In her imagination, Tangiers had been a dungeon full of whips and chains, but instead it was a Moroccan fairy tale. Gregor didn’t seem to be inclined to give her a tour, though. He was weaving through the crowd with a purposeful stride, heading for a dark corner behind the bar. As they neared the corner, she saw his destination was an unmarked door, black against black.
Someone fell into step beside them, just behind Maddy’s shoulder.
“Honey,” Gregor said. “This is Madelena López de Victoria. Madelena, this is my assistant, Honey Walker.”
Ah, so her name was Honey. That was a relief. Maddy twisted around to say hi. Honey was skinny as a rail, probably six feet tall, and wore what Maddy could only describe as a short poncho made of peacock feathers, and very little else except thigh high boots.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Honey said, her English accent crisp over the music and hubbub. Her face gave nothing away at all. Maybe Gregor made a habit of carrying women through his club.
“Gregor,” she said, “Martinez is satisfied with your offer. I’ve got the papers when you’re ready. Lily is out sick, Mike is subbing. The men’s loo is backed up and overflowing.”
“Very good,” said Gregor, throwing his back against the black door. “I’m not to be disturbed.”
They slipped through the door and it swung shut behind them, muffling the music outside. They were in a smallish room with low lights and a few pieces of leather furniture. Not much in the way of décor. He carried her through another door into another small room, this one containing nothing but a Spartan bed. It didn’t even have a window.
“This is where you live?” Maddy searched for socks, photos, books, any sign of habitation. “Where’s your stuff?”
Gregor set her on her feet and answered as he threw off his suit jacket, “I don’t need stuff.”
Clearly not in the mood for conversation, he began to unbutton her coat. Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t expect to see photos of Gregor’s trip to Disneyland, but still, the place had a heavy, silent, dead quality to it. Distinctly tomblike.
“What’s with this room?”
“It used to be a meat locker.”
He threw her coat on the floor with his and took her glasses away again, leaving her vulnerable. This was really happening. Fresh nerves made her run at the mouth.
“Oh, that’s nice. Real homey, Faustin. Here I thought you were standing against the crusty old stereotypes, a new kind of vam—”
He stopped her mouth with a kiss. How long since their last kiss? Five minutes? Far too long. And now that they were alone, he held nothing back. She’d thought his cab kisses intense—she knew nothing. This was nothing less than a decisive claiming, thorough as a fuck.
Everything in her opened up to him, welcomed him in as liquid lust coursed through her veins. She swayed. Her legs were going soft, conspiring to get her on her back as quickly as possible.
Gregor tugged her sweater up, stripping her down to the men’s sleeveless T-shirt she wore as an extra layer against the library chill. As Maddy liked to say of her underwear collection, she did not know Victoria’s secret.
A brush of wool over her face, a breath of cool air up her belly, and all of a sudden she was on her back, on the bed, and he was over her. His mouth was on her throat. Between deep sucking kisses he was testing her skin with his teeth, equal parts brutal and tender.
“Oh!” Maddy realized he was going to “taste” her, and every part of her wanted him to—except that part that wanted to live long enough to have sex with him.
“Gregor, stop.” Not a twinge of reaction from him. She wriggled, pushing against his weight, but all he did was hook an arm under her and hold her tighter, his teeth sharp against her throat.
“Shit! Gregor, wait!”
Her blood pressure was too low and her O2 levels were crap. She couldn’t afford to lose a drop of blood to him. Not knowing what else to do, she made a fist and boxed his ear.
He didn’t flinch, but he let go of her neck and raised his head. His eyes had gone flat and his mouth was cruel around the corners.
“You said I had to want it.” She was scared now, and tried not to show it. “I don’t. You can’t take my blood.”
For a few horrible seconds she wasn’t even sure if he could understand what she said, because his expression remained the same. Pressed beneath him, she was very aware of her own quick, panicked breaths and the heavy rise and fall of his chest. At long last, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again he looked a little more like himself. Then he spoke, and it sounded like his voice had been dragged through a gravel.
“I—need you.”
Maddy stroked his cheeks, trying to revive the more human parts of him. “Any way but that, Gregor. You can have me any other way.”
His cheek twitched, his entire body quivered, and he rasped out, “Scared?”
“No, sick. I have a heart condition.”
That made him sit up and rub his face with his palms. He was straddling her hips, so his erection was right there in front of her face, pressing against his flat-front trousers. She turned her head aside.
He got off her and started to pace around the room, angry, disappointed, something she couldn’t quite read. “What’s wrong with your heart?”