“Minions.” Though disclosing information to a perfect stranger made him uneasy, Roland filled Chris in on what had been happening.

“What’s the name of the vamp?”

“I only have a first name. Bastien.”

“Country of origin?”

“England.”

“Physical description?”

Roland gave him one.

“Vamps don’t have our resources, so they usually leave a money trail. If this one is lucid enough to organize and control an army, he can’t be too old. He also must live in the area. I’ve already got a guy tracing the license plate and VIN numbers on the SUVs the minions drove to your place. We took them before the fire department arrived and replaced them with a couple of crap cars. We’ll check them for prints and other forensic evidence, then let me see what I can come up with and I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks, man.”

“No problem. Call me if anything else comes up.”

“I will.”

“Do you want me to send out a team to guard you and Sarah while you sleep?”

“No thanks.” He couldn’t extend his already shaky trust to anyone else.

At least, not yet.

“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will.”

After hanging up, Roland put Chris’s number on speed dial.

“Roland?”

He turned, warmth invading him as Sarah shuffled into the room.

Her long hair was tousled from their lovemaking and framed her face in tangled waves. Her eyelids were heavy, her lips still swollen from his kisses.

Only his black T-shirt, which he silently admitted had never looked so good, covered her nudity. The sleeves that were short on him covered her elbows. The hem fell a third of the way down her pale, faintly muscled thighs.

Seeing her in the too-big plain cotton shirt stirred him more swiftly than the sexiest lingerie would. He was filled with such tenderness and affection. Such possessiveness.

Mine.

He wanted to shout it to the world, place his mark on her so everyone would know she was his.

Hell.

If he wasn’t careful, he was going to find himself falling in love with her.

And that way lay heartache and disaster.

It never ended well when an immortal fell in love with a human.

Only gifted ones could be successfully transformed. Those rare individuals with the extra DNA memo groups that bestowed upon them special abilities and enabled their bodies to mutate the virus so they would become immortal rather than vampire. So many gifted ones had been killed before they could procreate in centuries past by fools egged on by superstition, fear, or envy, that their descendants today were very few. The chances of an immortal finding and falling in love with one were astronomically low. Roland could number on one hand the times such had happened during his long existence (word tended to get around when it did) and those love affairs had ended badly when the gifted ones chose not to be transformed.

The fact that an individual could safely be transformed didn’t necessarily mean he or she would want to be transformed.

But even that hope had been denied him here. Sarah had none of the special gifts that would have indicated she was different. She lacked the black hair and dark brown eyes characteristic of all those who possessed the bloodline that would prevent her from turning vampire. A relationship with her could only end one of two ways.

At best, he would have fifty or sixty years with her before she died in his arms of old age. His ability to heal may extend that a decade or so if he were lucky.

At worst, they would have … maybe twenty years of happiness before the signs of her aging could no longer be staved off. And those signs would gradually increase. The first time someone mistook her for his mother rather than his wife or lover would devastate her. She would feel self-conscious about the changes taking place in her body (while his remained youthful) and insist they only make love in the dark under the covers, where she thought she could hide from his preternatural vision.

As various parts of her continued to wrinkle and sag, she would begin to question his love for her. His attempts to reassure her by pointing out that if he were human and aging alongside her, he would feel no different—his devotion unfaltering—would fall on deaf ears. Each night, when he left to hunt, she would suspect he was seeing a younger woman on the side. She would grow increasingly bitter. He would become weary of her distrust and constant accusations, her lack of faith in him.

It was always the same.

He had been naive when he had courted Mary. Communication between immortals had been very limited at the time and further hampered by his self-imposed isolation. He had foolishly believed that as long as he loved her, the inevitable changes in Mary’s appearance wouldn’t matter.

It wasn’t until the birth of the Internet that allowed immortals all over the world to meet and communicate with each other via chat rooms and message boards that he had understood the truth of it.

But as Sarah approached him, a sleepy smile lighting her face, there was a part of him that wished, just this once, it would turn out differently.

“When I woke up, you were gone.”

Walking into his embrace, she wrapped her arms around him and leaned her head against his chest. Her small hands were cold on his back, her toes icy where they brushed his.

He didn’t mind. Feeling inexorably heartsore, Roland rested his cheek atop her hair and let her presence soothe him.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, rubbing his back.

“Yes, it was just Seth’s Cleaner, calling to let me know everything had been taken care of. The police won’t be questioning us about the fire or the dead men.”

“Good.”

He couldn’t help but derive a certain masculine satisfaction from the fact that his scent was all over her. Beneath that was her own unique fragrance, tantalizing him as it always did.

She squeezed him tighter momentarily. “I’m sorry you lost your house, Roland.”

He shook his head slightly. “The only things irreplaceable in it were you, Marcus, and Nietzsche, and you all made it out safely.”

He felt her smile against his chest. “You’re so sweet.”

Roland choked back a laugh. Sweet was an adjective he didn’t think anyone had used to describe him since he was in swaddling clothes.

“You know what?” she asked mischievously.

“What?” he responded, still smiling.

Raising up onto her toes, she tilted her head back and whispered in his ear, “You’re wearing my favorite outfit.”

He laughed and glanced down. “I’m completely naked.”

She grinned. “And you wear it so well.”

His spirits buoyed, he lowered his head.

Sarah hummed her approval as his lips brushed hers.

When she had awoken and found herself alone, she had felt a moment’s panic. Then, from a distance, the faint murmur of his voice had reached her ears. The bed had felt so cold and empty. She hadn’t been able to go back to sleep without his big, warm body spooned up behind her.

After listening to the indistinct rumble of his voice for several minutes and hearing no responses, she had assumed he was talking on the phone, donned his T-shirt, gone in search of him, and found him standing gloriously naked in the living room.

For a moment, he had looked so sad. She had wanted only to hold him, comfort him, bring a smile to his face.

But now, with his sleek tongue slipping past her lips and speeding her pulse, all she could think of was how it had felt to have him inside her, moving in long, deep, hard strokes that had made her want to scream and had sped her toward one fantastic orgasm after another.

Withdrawing her arms from around his waist, she slid her hands up his muscled chest, over his shoulders, and tunneled her fingers through his short, silky hair.

He groaned as she raked her nails across his scalp and hungrily returned his kiss. Bending his knees so she wouldn’t have to stand on her toes, he grasped her nape with one hand and locked her to him while he slid the other down over her hip and thigh.

She shivered when that hand dipped beneath the hem of the shirt she wore and slowly began to climb again, drawing the soft cotton along with it. Cool air rushed over her rapidly heating flesh as he cupped her bottom and squeezed, dragging her tighter against him. The long, hard length of his erection prodded her stomach as he insinuated a strong thigh between her legs and pressed against her sensitive core.

Sarah moaned, breath catching. She was already wet, dampening his skin as she rocked against him.

His hunger rising, Roland released her tempting ass and slid his hand up her slender back. His body began to tremble with the need to be inside her.

Abandoning her lips, he whipped the shirt over her head and bared her beautiful body. He stroked her breasts, pinching the hardened peaks. She jerked against him.

Smiling, he lowered his head and took one pink bud into his mouth, swirled his tongue around it, took it between his teeth, and bit, though he was careful not to break the skin. He glanced up when she moaned again. Her face was flushed with passion, her hips urgent as they rocked against him. She was so wet for him. He wanted to taste her. Now.

Dropping to his knees, he parted her legs and feasted upon her center. The dark triangle of curls was damp with need, her scent going straight to his head like a glass of champagne.

She cried out as his tongue sought her clit, rasped across it. His cock hardened even more as she clenched her hands in his hair and held him to her. Again and again he teased the nub of her desire, circling it, flicking it, sucking it as he slipped one finger inside her, then a second, stroking in rhythm with his mouth until she was panting and begging for release.

A first orgasm crashed over her, drawing his name from her lips as her body spasmed around his fingers. And still he did not cease, building upon it, extending it. Not until the last cry was wrung from her lips and her knees buckled did he withdraw.

Roland caught her easily and lifted her even as he stood, urging her legs around his waist. He was shaking with need, her taste lingering on his tongue. The kisses and love bites she delivered to his neck only enflamed him more.