Helena gasped and clasped his head, clenching his hair in her fingers. The scent rising off her turned primal and lush. It made his nostrils flare and his saliva run. She was about to come. Alex couldn't repress a deep growl.
Dingdongdingdongdingdongdingdong. A terrible noise cut through the red haze. The doorbell. It took him a moment to figure out that Helena was leaning against the buzzer. He pulled her upright and the noise stopped. She began to thrash and shout, wild with desire. He could barely contain her in his arms.
"Beloved." Maybe he said it, maybe he only thought it, but he knew she understood. His mouth stretched open, his teeth raked her flesh.
Helena kneed him viciously, straight up between his legs. The pain dropped him to the ground. She retreated over the threshold. He scrambled after her on all fours. The door cracked against his skull.
"Ow!" He actually saw stars, just like in the cartoons. The dog was barking again.
Alex knelt for some time on the "Bless this Mess" doormat, one hand on his head, the other between his legs, moaning with the pain and thinking this would not happen to his brother Mikhail. Mikhail would have arrived at the door with a plan. And his other brother, Gregor—well, Gregor wouldn't let himself be beat up by a woman.
But within minutes of meeting his bride-to-be, Alex was on his knees, concussed and bellowing like a sick cow. Bull, rather. Former bull.
"Helena! You don't understand. I've come to marry you!"
"You'd better get out of here. I've already called the cops." Her voice came from above. Wincing in pain, Alex looked up. She was leaning out an upstairs window, her cell phone cupped to her ear. "I'm talking to 911. Oh. I'm not supposed to talk to him? Sorry. Well, he's tall, at least six feet, black hair. Yeah, tall, dark and handsome. I know, it is a shame. He's wearing an overcoat. I'm not sure how old he is. Maybe thirty? Said his name is Alexander Fast—Fastino? — something like that."
"Faustin!"
"Yeah, he's just kneeling on my porch. Making funny noises."
"Helena, call them off. Let's talk."
"Yeah, right, pervert. Like I'd get within ten feet of you without a cattle prod." She spoke to 911 again. "Yes, he came to the door, said he had a message for me and then attacked me."
"Attacked you? Oh, come on!"
"I think I hear sirens."
Alex had already heard them and knew how close they were. Of course, they might have sent a silent cruiser ahead. He considered firing up the rental car, but a pathetic chase through a strange city in a Chevy Cobalt would be the cherry on top of a failure of an evening. And vamps didn't do well in prison settings.
He'd have to go by his own power. Muttering to himself and all too aware of Helena watching him above, he went to his car and pulled out his rolling bag and laptop. The cops were almost there.
"We will marry, Helena MacAllister," he said in a parting salvo—a proud moment for his kind, to be sure. "You can count on it!"
Maybe he'd just immolate with the sunrise.
The cops took her report and impounded his car. Helena was glad he left it behind, proving that she was not crazy, proving that a god-like man had in fact knocked on her door, muttered something about "his only" and began to devour her like a quart of Cherry Garcia.
"Christ, Helena." Lacey guided her to the sofa like an invalid. "Maybe you should sleep at my place tonight."
"Thanks, but I can't. That lets him win." She shrugged her shoulders to throw off a case of the willies. "I almost think if I left the house, he'd come in here and sniff my underwear or something. You know, what I really want to do is take a run."
"Just like one of those doomed chicks in the horror movies?"
"I didn't say I was going to—I said I wanted to." How else was she going to take control of her body again? Common sense, safety, general decency, none of that mattered anymore. That was brain stuff. Her brain hadn't been in charge of her body since Alexander Faustin reached up and cupped the side of her head with his long fingers. She'd never seen such beautiful eyes on a man.
"Peter and I could spend the night here with you."
Startled out of her reflections, Helena managed a smile. "I'd like that. Can we make it a slumber party? All of us in the living room?"
Lacey smiled back and looked so concerned and sincere that Helena almost started to cry. She was a wreck.
"Will you bring Newland to guard us?"
Newland was Peter's Bernese Mountain Dog, far more formidable than her little Pom, Scully. But Scully had been right on the money. Helena reached out and ruffled Scully's thick fur. "You knew he was a weirdo, didn't you?"
"Do you want to take a shower or something?" Lacey asked. "I'll stand guard."
"No, I just took a bath before…" She threw up her hands. "Look, it is creepy to know he's loose, but all he did was kiss me." That's not true. "Really, I'm okay." Why are you covering for him? "I'm a victim of the Kissing Bandit. What was that, an old movie? Or a cartoon?"
"A Sinatra musical." Lacey loved corny old movies. "He could have done more. You're lucky."
"Yes…" He could have done much, much more. His hands and mouth were cold when they first touched her—he must have been outside for some time—but they warmed fast. It was like he knew her secret code or had been studying her fantasies. He kissed her like she wanted to be kissed. He touched her the way she dreamed of being touched.
And he was a pervert who accosted women on their porches. It figured. The single biggest erotic thrill of her life had come about in the commission of a criminal act. She'd basically given up on men already. Now it was time to make it official and start collecting cats.
"Yes, I'm lucky. I'm going upstairs to wash my mouth out…change, maybe…"
"Want me to come with?"
"No. Call Peter. Is Jojo's closed? I could use a pizza."
Helena drifted up the stairs in a stupor brought on by thinking too much about his kiss, from remembering details. She'd kissed him back. That was bad. Very bad. He came to her door under false pretexts and rendered her a mindless slut with his big brown eyes and his magic tongue. What did you call that? What did that make her? What did that make him?
Standing at the sink, she took a mouthful of Scope and swished it around, watching her cheeks puff like a chipmunk's. She had a zit on her chin. Her bathrobe was coffee-stained and fraying at the cuffs. Why had Faustin targeted her?
The cops had told her the car he drove was an airport rental out of Denver. Right before he vanished into the night, she'd watched him take a suitcase from its trunk and a briefcase from the front seat, calm as anything, and walk down the road. Just another day of what—business travel and stalking? Or maybe stalking was his business?
She told the police his final threat to marry her. They were good at wearing their neutral cop-masks, but that got their attention. The cops exchanged looks with each other. It meant he was definitely crazy and he was coming back.
They'd cruised around for a while, washing the hillsides and gullies with spotlights, but since no one had been murdered, they didn't bring out the German Shepherds and the SWAT team. Instead they gave her a number to call and promised to keep an eye on the house. Her house sat on a half acre of pine and scrub. There were plenty of places to hide. He may not have gone far at all. Then again, it was beginning to snow. He couldn't last long out there.
Helena spit and rinsed. Her robe flapped open and she saw a bruise at the base of her throat, just above the collarbone. A hickey. Classy, stalker man. Thanks. She hadn't had a hickey since junior high, when she lost a round of truth or dare and had to let Bobby Milburn give her one.
This one was a little different. Bobby's didn't make her come. Circling her finger around the purple mark, she remembered how Faustin's rough, sucking kisses brought out responses in her she could never have imagined. His hair was curly and thick, just long enough to grab by the fistful, and she had used it to hold him to her throat.