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  She had been on the run from her pack for months now but she was sure they were still looking for her.

  This was a mistake.

  Kristina tried to get free of her partner but his thick arm tightened across her stomach, holding her firm. A spark of panic leapt through her blood and she struggled to tamp it down and disguise it so he wouldn’t sense it in her. She made out she was turning in his arms and he allowed it, his large hands moving to her backside, clutching and squeezing.

  What the Hell had she been thinking?

  The vampire had scared her and she had gone running to her own kind. Pathetic. She was stronger than that. So his fangs had come out and she had felt their sharp tips on her tongue, that didn’t mean he had intended to bite her. Not everything she had been told about vampires was true. She had thought she had known that, had accepted it as fact, and had always been proud of herself for being able to see that vampires weren’t really a threat unless you made them one by provoking them. It turned out that she was wrong and she hadn’t accepted it after all. The moment his fangs had touched her, she had panicked and lashed out, her heart rocketing and hackles rising. Everything bad she had ever been told about vampires had shot through her mind and she had gone with it rather than telling herself that it was just desire that had brought his fangs out. It was a reaction her kind shared with vampires. Whenever she got a little overexcited, her canines extended against her will.

  She should have been flattered by his reaction to her kiss, not sought to knock his fangs out.

  She was no better than every other werewolf. They had driven fear of vampires, horror stories about them, so deep into her mind that she couldn’t escape it even when she thought that she had.

  The male werewolf leaned down towards her and she stiffened in his arms, fear of him rising inside her and telling her to break away from him, that he would try to dominate her just as her alpha had. She had to run.

  His warm breath washed over her skin, turning her stomach, and she shrank backwards, trying to escape his touch. She had been a fool to run back to her own kind for protection. She had probably been safer with the vampire than she was with this male. They all wanted the same thing from her, all smelt her readiness to mate and took it to mean that she wanted them when she didn’t. She wasn’t interested in bearing cubs like a dutiful female. She wanted a life.

  A firm cool hand on her shoulder caused her to jump. The start of a shriek escaped her before she clamped down hard on it and the world whirled past her in a blur of blue and purple neon and laser lights. A hard wall of black slammed against her and a low threatening snarl curled out over the pumping music.

  Her instincts sparked, senses zeroing in on the male werewolf at her back and the dark presence of vampire in front of her. The vampire’s arm tightened around her, pressing her to his chest, and he snarled again, a feral sound that a werewolf would have been proud of making. The werewolf growled back but it lacked the strength and ferocity of the vampire’s, sounding weak and tailing off at the end.

  Kristina glanced up at her unlikely saviour, looking past the strong defined line of his jaw and the sensual mouth that had sent her head spinning with only a kiss, beyond his straight nose that said he might be an aristocrat vampire, to the red coals of his irises and the vertical slits of his pupils. He growled again, bearing his fangs. They were enormous now, fully extended as he threatened the werewolf behind her.

  The werewolf snarled back at him and she sensed the two other male werewolves rise from their seats, heading out of the booth to back up their leader.

  Kristina wasn’t sure how to defuse the situation before it exploded. She did the first thing that came to her.

  She tiptoed, caught the vampire’s cheek in her palm, and kissed him.

  The werewolves behind her stopped moving. The vampire froze against her, his mouth slack and unmoving. With all four males shocked, Kristina made her move. She grabbed the vampire’s hand, twisted out of his embrace, and dragged him into the crowd. They had made it halfway across the dance floor before she heard the werewolf growl and felt the vampire come back to his senses. His hand shifted in hers and he spun her into his arms. He looked down at her, the flicker of coloured lights over his face turning his eyes from red to blue to purple and back again.

  Kristina expected him to shout at her, or try to escape her grasp and return to fight the werewolf, or do something.

  He just stood there in the middle of the dance floor staring at her.

  His pupils gradually widened, switching back to their normal state, and the colour of his irises shifted, so the lights now made them flicker between green, blue and purple.

  “I wasn’t going to bite you,” he said in a low voice that she barely heard over the music and stepped towards her, until she could sense his body close to hers and the temptation to move the bare few inches and bring them against each other hummed through her. “But he was.”

  The hard look that entered his emerald eyes caused her to divert hers and she stared past him, not wanting to admit that he was right and the male werewolf had intended to mark her right there in front of everyone and she had been too weak and scared to do anything about it.

  “What’s your name?” she whispered and shoved her weakness away, cleared her throat, lifted her chin and looked directly into his eyes. “I think I have a right to know the name of my hero.”

  “Hero?” He laughed and shook his head, causing a silken strand of his long black hair to drift down against his cheek. He casually swept it back behind his ear, so it curled around it, and then smiled at her. “I’m hardly the good guy here... but you can call me Callum.”

  Callum. Cal. Although he didn’t look like the sort of man who would easily accept someone shortening his name without permission.

  Kristina bravely closed the gap between them and ran her hands over the soft black cotton of his obviously expensive shirt. His chest was granite hard beneath the material, the feel of it sending a hum of pleasure through her body as she recalled the strength of his grip when he had kissed her and when he had rescued her from one of her own kind. She slid her palms up to his strong broad shoulders, looped them around his neck, and started to move against him.

  He kept perfectly still, the calm confidence in his eyes melting away to allow something akin to confusion to surface.

  “Well, Callum.” She tipped her head back and looked up into his eyes. They were locked on hers, searching, probing, as though hers might tell him what she was up to and what she intended to get out of him by swaying in his arms. His pupils dilated with the first brush of her hips across his and his bowed lips parted to reveal the barest trace of straight white teeth. “Don’t you want to know my name?”

  Kristina rotated her hips into his and held her nerve when she felt the growing bulge in his black trousers. He looked beautifully startled when she pressed her groin against his, moving up and down his body, teasing him with the friction.

  The hunger for him that had begun as little more than a spark of interest when she had noticed him watching her around six days ago had slowly grown into a burning desire for him three days ago and she had been teasing him since then, toying with him. She had wanted to speak to him so many times so she could know why he watched her so closely and why he was following her. Her initial reaction had been one of fear but then she had realised that he was a vampire, not one of her alpha’s goons come to take her home. The feel of his eyes on her had given her confidence that she had never felt before. She had danced with men, aware that he was watching, putting on a show for him. Her nightly repertoire had grown in the strange pre-dawn twilight this morning, climaxing in her feeding on a human man while he watched from the shadows.

  When she had stepped away from the man and wiped his mind of the incident, replacing the memories with ones of passion, she had felt sure that the vampire would make his move, that the sight of her feeding would have driven him over the edge. He had stayed in the shadows for long minutes and then left.
Had he fought his desire and won?

  Part of her despised him for that, for having better control than she had over herself. She hadn’t been able to overcome her curiosity tonight and had gone to him, only to run away like a cub when she had felt his fangs. Well, that wouldn’t happen again.

  Kristina wiggled her way back up him, twirled the long black hair in the ponytail at the nape of his neck, and smiled into his eyes, giving him her best seductive look.

  His pupils dilated further and he finally moved, his hands coming to settle on her hips and then sliding upwards to the low waist of her tight jeans. She shivered with the first caress of his cool palms over her waist, his hands under the flowing loose material of her top. His thumbs pressed into her stomach, fingers firm against her back, the touch electrifying her. It was dominant but in the best way. He was reconfirming his strength and silently telling her that he could easily take control of things if he wanted, while his expression told her that he was also more than happy to comply and let her take the lead.

  She swayed her hips and moved down his body again, trailing her palms over his shoulders and chest, forcing his hands on her up to her ribs and the sides of her breasts. His eyes narrowed briefly, heat blazing in them as he shifted his hands forwards to capture her breasts, and then he frowned when she worked her way upwards again before he could touch them.

  He stepped into her, wedging a hard muscular thigh between her legs and stopping her from wriggling. A moan slipped from her lips as he moved it, brushing it against her groin, and she looped her arms around his neck. Staring into his eyes, lost in them, she forgot about the werewolves in the club and the pack back in England that were searching for her. The world fell away, taking her cares with it, stripping her of the part of her that continually whispered that this man was not for her.

  It didn’t matter that he was handsome and strong. It didn’t matter that when he watched her she felt as though she could do anything. It didn’t matter that she wanted him more than was reasonable and that her need for him was fierce and controlled her to a degree.

  He was a vampire.

  In his arms like this, that was the thing that no longer mattered.

  He bent towards her, his hands pressing into her sides as he lowered them down from her waist over her hips and round to her backside. He pulled her closer, cranking her temperature up another ten degrees, and moved against her. The slide of his thigh between hers, the fleeting contact between his hard body and her aching one, had her sinking her teeth into her lower lip. She wanted more, cursed her tight jeans for inhibiting her and stopping her from being able to gain the satisfaction she desired. She pushed against him, curling her hips, hungry and seeking more friction to sate her need.

  Callum’s cool skin brushing her neck startled her and her gaze leapt from his to what she could see of his hand out of the corner of her eye. He swept the tangled lengths of her hair from her throat, the teasing whisper of his fingers over her hungry body almost too much for her to bear, and then leaned into her. Kristina moaned and couldn’t stop herself from tilting her head to one side even though she was aware that by doing so she was breaking the rules of her kind. It was wrong of her to welcome a vampire’s touch and let him kiss her throat, especially when she had feared one of her own species doing such a thing to her just minutes before.

  It was different with Callum.

  The hard press of his lips on her throat, the sweep of his tongue over her jugular, stirred only desire in her, flooding her with the ache to bury her fingers into his hair and anchor him there so he wouldn’t stop. There was no threat in his caress, no sense that he intended to sink his fangs into her, and even if he did, it would only be the vampire equivalent of a love bite.

  The werewolf had intended to mark her and claim her with the bite.

  A vampire couldn’t do such a thing.

  “Tell me your name,” Callum husked into her ear, his cool breath tickling her skin. He kissed and sucked her earlobe, curled his tongue around it, sending a shiver down her throat that set her aflame. She rocked against him, meeting his shallow thrusts, panting as her desire got the better of her. His firm grip on her backside with one hand and the nape of her neck with the other drove her wild. She bucked and writhed, rubbing herself along the length of his thigh. Her fingertips pressed into the hard bulge of his pectorals and raked downwards, catching his nipples through his black shirt and tearing a groan from him. She answered him with a moan of her own when she reached the granite slab of his stomach, her imagination running away with her. What would he look like nude and in all his glory? She pictured a lean built physique. Muscles that could melt a woman right down to her core barely hidden beneath milky skin. A trail of hair as dark as his ponytail that led down from the sensual dip of his navel to his impressive hard cock. Lithe powerful legs that exuded strength as much as the rest of him. He was a god in her imagination.

  Would he be that way in reality?

  She had an itch to find out and wanted to scratch it right there in the club.

  “Tell me,” he said again, voice rough with desire, and nipped her earlobe. It was hard to think when he was licking and kissing, his body moving into hers, hands grasping and kneading. She couldn’t remember her own name. All she knew was intense pleasure and a craving for more.

  He chuckled against her throat and kissed it again, wet open mouthed ones that made the fragments of thoughts she had gathered scatter and tore a moan from her.

  “I guess I’m not the only one having trouble functioning here.” His voice was a silken purr in her ear and he suddenly stepped away from her.

  Kristina stood on jelly legs, gripping the sleeves of his black shirt in tight fists to keep herself upright. He looked around them and enough sense broke through the haze of arousal fogging her mind for her to wonder what he was looking for. She stumbled when he locked a strong hand around her wrist and strode towards the edge of the dance floor. She bumped into several dancers, mumbling apologies, and saw past Callum’s wide shoulders. A couple exited one of the curtained booths directly ahead of them. A blush blazed across her cheeks as she realised what he was up to and what might happen between them if she entered the private booth with him and sense reared its ugly head and told her to break free of him before it was too late.

  The desire to do such a thing faltered and died when he looked over his shoulder at her, his hungry gaze devouring hers, expressing everything that she was feeling inside. He knew as well as she did that this was wrong but it wasn’t stopping him.

  And she wouldn’t let it stop her either.

  He pulled her into the booth, closed the heavy black velvet curtains with one stroke, and turned on her.

  Kristina let her breath out on a sigh as he claimed her waist, moulded her body against the hard expanse of his, and kissed her.

  Before she started to kiss him back, before things got beyond her control and she lost her ability to think again, she pulled away and stared into his eyes.

  “Kristina,” she breathed and he grinned sexily.

  “Now I know what to call you when I lose myself in you.”

  Oh, Heavens, that sounded so hot husked in his deep voice as he stared at her with hungry eyes that promised he wouldn’t let her go until he had satisfied the passion bouncing between them. Kristina grabbed his tie, yanked him to her and pressed a brief hard kiss to his lips.

  She smiled wickedly.

  “Mister, you’ll be screaming it by the time I’m done with you.”

  Chapter 3

  Callum backed her up until her calves hit the curved leather seat of the booth and she fell onto her bottom. He towered over her, immense and beautiful, dark and deadly, just the sight of him exciting her. Kristina tried to stand again but he pressed his right hand to her shoulder and forced her back onto the seat.

  He tugged at the knot of his dark purple tie and loosened it before slipping the two sides free of each other. His fingers started on the buttons of his black shirt next and a tiny see
d of fear settled in the pit of her stomach, took root, and started to grow.

  “We should take this somewhere a little more private,” she said automatically and he paused at his work, his fingers halfway down his chest and the top part of his shirt open to reveal the groove between his pectorals.

  Hell, it was hard not to pounce on him and screw him right there on the tacky dirty booth floor. Her gaze stayed rooted on the tiny patch of his chest that she could see, her body willing her to give up the false sense of propriety that had suddenly claimed her and just reach out and take what she wanted.

  Callum.

  Vampire.

  His fingers started their work again and she itched to reach up and join them in revealing his body to her hungry eyes.

  “This is private enough,” he husked in a passion roughened voice and smiled reassuringly. “No one will disturb us.”

  She wasn’t so sure. There were three male werewolves who had seen her kiss the vampire, and watched them on the dance floor and then exit it for this booth, and one of them had a big old dent in his masculine pride that needed fixing. Male werewolves were ridiculously hard-headed and primal. She didn’t want to look up halfway through scratching her itch for Callum to find a glowering werewolf looming over them.

  “I can’t hold out until we find somewhere else.” Callum’s low spoken words barely reached her over the pounding beat of the music but they struck a chord in her.

  She raked her gaze over him, burning at a thousand degrees for the cool feel of his hands on her bare body and his mouth claiming hers again. Who was she kidding? She felt the same way. She wouldn’t last until her hotel. If they took a cab, she would probably end up riding him in the backseat for the driver to see. She was running too hot now to turn back.

  Kristina grabbed the two sides of the tie resting around his neck, dragged him down to his knees before her, and kissed him again. His tongue thrust into her mouth, cool and dominant, sliding over hers in the most delicious way. The feel of his hands on her thighs and the way they shifted roughly to her backside and tugged her to the edge of the leather seat sent a quiver through her and flooded her mind with images of him using his strength on her in other ways. She shivered at the vision of him grasping her wrists in one hand and sinking his long cock into her, thrusting wildly until they were both sweaty and hot, both gasping for air and exploding with need.