Doug groaned as he wrapped his large hands easily around her waist. Olivia tensed as he pulled her close and held her against him. She glanced up to find his blue eyes peering down at her fiercely beneath furrowed brows.
“What happened?” he rasped. His fingers dug into her hip as he wavered, letting his weight lean into the wall. “What are you doing here?”
She should glamour him. She should do it and get in the damn tunnels.
But she didn’t.
“I—I bumped into you.” She blinked and barely noticed that her hands were now resting on his broad shoulders, and he was standing without her assistance. “I have to go, but I wanted to be sure you were okay. You hit your head on the edge of the building when we ran into each other,” she lied.
He never touched the building, but the force of her body slamming into his had been enough to knock him out for a minute. She was grateful he didn’t break anything.
Olivia stepped back and glanced down at the shadow line, which crept closer every second. With surprisingly fast reflexes, his hands snaked around her waist again and tugged her against his muscular body. She could have eluded him easily, but she didn’t want to; all she wanted was to press her cheek against his chest and stay there.
“You did a hell of a lot more than that,” Doug murmured as he pulled her tighter against him, while his hands spanned her waist. “Don’t go.” His voice, edgy and full of need, washed over her, while his thumb brushed the curve of her hip, heightening her desire and testing her strength. “Are you really here with me now, or is this just another dream?”
Heat emanated from him and covered her like a blanket. The truth was it could have been the sun getting ready to fry her, but she didn’t care. All she cared about or could think about was the man in her arms and getting one, sweet taste. It had been so long since she kissed anyone. But he wasn’t just anyone.
Olivia moaned, a sound that hung somewhere between lust and warning. She shook her head and meant to lean back, but before she could stop herself, she was leaning into him.
His mouth crashed down on hers with a groan of pleasure. She opened to him and sighed as his tongue tangled with hers, and she fleetingly noted that he did taste like the ocean. Salty, clean, wild, and full of life. Olivia held his head with both hands and angled hers, deepening the kiss. She licked and nibbled at his lips, desperate to get closer, as one strong hand slipped down her hip to cup her ass, and the other tangled in her long hair.
The dam broke.
Lust clawed at her. The rest of the world fell away as she allowed herself to revel in the taste of him on her lips and the feel of his body pressed against hers. She forgot how exquisite it felt to be cradled in the arms of a man and devoured as if she were the most desirable creature on earth. The sweep of his tongue along hers and the brush of his fingers against her scalp as he sipped from her lips, sent licks of fire through her body.
In the swell of lust and swept up in a moment of weakness, her fangs emerged. Holding him against the wall, tangled in his arms, the knifelike points of her fangs scraped his tongue as it explored, and then… the world exploded.
Light. Heat. A heartbeat.
His blood touched her tongue and danced through her body in life-giving electric pulses. It was like getting shocked by a defibrillator, and for the first time in close to three hundred years—her heart actually beat. As his blood shot through her veins, she clung to him in shocked desperation, wondering what it meant, and at the same time, not caring.
All she could do was feel.
With every beat of their synced pulses came a picture, a memory from his life now, his life with her centuries ago, and his dreams with her. As memories of this life and the last collided in a flurry of images, she realized that she was as much a part of him as he was of her. The floodgates had opened, and there was no going back.
Olivia gasped and broke the kiss, abruptly tearing her mouth from his, and she blinked as her heart beat in her chest almost to the point of pain. He looked at her through hooded, lust-filled eyes and tried to pull her in for more. As the sensations faded and reality came roaring back into focus, the sun rudely intruded and demanded an end to their stolen moment.
Breathing heavily, Doug pressed a kiss against her forehead as his heart raced with the clear cry of desire against her now silent chest. She lingered, allowing herself to lean into his embrace and float in the tender feel of his warm lips against her skin for one minute more.
A million thoughts raced through her mind, but one cried louder than the others.
Bloodmate.
His heated gaze was the last image she saw as she slipped from his arms and flew down the alley like the wind. The instant she left the shelter of his embrace, the sun blazed over her, and she waited, expecting to feel and hear the familiar sizzling as it burned her skin. Olivia tore off the manhole cover and dropped silently into the safe darkness of the sewer tunnel before securing the cover tightly behind her.
She stood in the dank space and touched her lips as they curved into a smile. She didn’t notice the rats that ran over her feet because she could still taste him on her tongue, and the lingering, brilliant effect of his blood echoed through her body. She held up her unmarred hands and touched the smooth skin on her face with genuine awe. For the first time since she had been turned, the sun had not damaged her. Not even so much as a tan.
In that brief moment, Doug had given her life, and as she inspected the undamaged skin, one word escaped her lips on a whisper. “Bloodmate.”
She didn’t know how or why it could be true, and she didn’t care. In fact, after getting that taste, she knew that all bets were off, and the dreams would no longer be enough. Now she craved more than flesh and blood. She craved him.
Chapter 4
Olivia moved through the tunnels with the ease of experience, although not as quickly as she hoped. The Presidium’s New York office was located directly beneath the Cloisters, a museum full of medieval artifacts, and Fort Tryon Park, which wasn’t that far from the medical examiner’s office. For a human it would be one hell of a walk to the Cloisters. As a vampire using the underground network, it was less of a trek, but since she hadn’t fed in almost twenty-four hours, she was dragging ass a little.
She whipped around the turns effortlessly and with such speed that the stone and cement walls became nothing more than a blur. Even though she was tired, she pushed herself and moved as swiftly as she could. Heightened vampire senses were great, unless you were running through a sewer tunnel. Then it was just an extra dose of gross.
As distasteful as her surroundings were, and regardless of the vermin that scurried through the tunnels to get out of her way, a smile lingered on her lips. Doug didn’t just look like the man she loved as a human or strongly resemble the man in her dreams. He was one and the same, reincarnated, and larger than life. She saw his memories from three hundred years ago; memories of their shared dreams flooded her, trimmed with his emotions, his desire.
But if he had these memories, why didn’t he know her? Why not recognize her? Were they simply buried so deep in his unconscious mind that he was unable to see what they were?
Her smile faltered as the dank air blew over her face, and the din of human life on the streets above filled her head. She had fed from countless humans over the years, and not one gave her life, albeit briefly, the way a drop or two of Doug’s blood had. She had tasted demon blood and Amoveo blood, but neither had that kind of effect.