Darkest Desire of the Vampire: Wicked in Moonlight\Vampire Island (Harlequin Nocturne) (16 page)

At least she hoped it was the direction. Because neither man stopped her, she figured that she was okay.

She felt their stares boring into her back as she went.

It took fifteen long minutes to reach the gates of the resort from which she had so easily slipped out not more than an hour earlier. The return trip was much less pleasant than the walk there had been—she was hurrying, for one thing, instead of strolling, and the extra exertion made her perspire and wish desperately for a huge glass of ice water. Also, gone was the pleasant sensation of freedom, replaced by the nagging feelings of self-doubt twined with confusing feelings about Sloane...feelings that she had no business having at all.

“Stop it.” Inhaling deeply as she placed a hand on the wrought-iron gate, Isla tried to shake the negative feelings away.

Scowling to herself, Isla decided that she was going to go back to her bungalow, cover up the creepy window in the floor and regroup. Maybe she would take a bath in that beautiful, large tub and then she would go to bed.

Surely in the morning things would be better.

Slipping through the gate, Isla turned to close it again behind her. She screeched and jumped when she found Sloane standing right behind her.

“What the hell are you doing?” Placing a hand over her skittering heart, she tried to catch the breath that had been startled right out of her. “Why are you following me?”

Sloane merely raised an eyebrow, though he didn’t look happy. “I’m making sure that you get back safely.” If she didn’t know that he was a stranger, she would have thought that he was upset with her attitude toward him.

“Well, I’m back. Thank you.” Tired of it all, Isla wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She was tired. She wanted that bath and some sleep. “Next time I decide to go skinny-dipping in the jungle, I’ll let you know first so that you can talk me out of it.”

Suddenly near tears, frustration slicing through her veins like razors, Isla stalked off in the direction of her bungalow. She paused and turned back when she heard Sloane call her name.

“Skinny-dipping means that you’re completely naked.” His glower melted into a lazy, nearly cocky grin, and he swept his eyes up her and then back down, leaving her gaping and with no way to interpret the action except for what it was.

“And if you’re going to be completely naked then yes, please do let me know.”

* * *

Sloane enjoyed the flush that spread over Isla’s skin as she realized that he was flirting with her. Seemingly at a loss for words, she spun on her heel and marched off.

The woman had horrible self-esteem, and he couldn’t imagine why. She was beautiful, funny and bright, if a little naive. He had meant only to coax her from her bad mood, which he knew was partially, if not entirely, his fault.

But he knew that he had only spoken the truth. The thought of being near a fully naked Isla made him groan softly with need.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the haunting visual. He had other things to think about.

Had Marcus been telling the truth when he’d said that he was in the woods looking for Isla? As Lucian’s right-hand man, it was entirely plausible.

Equally possible, though, was that Marcus had been the vampire he had warned away from Isla. And if that was the case, then Sloane could be in a world of trouble.

Or maybe he wouldn’t be. He had no idea why her friend had been invited to the island by Lucian, nor why the vampire had allowed Isla to take Jessie’s place. The ancient vampire usually kept those who he brought on his personal whims close by, and he hadn’t yet seemed to show any interest in Isla at all.

The part of the beast inside him that had decided that Isla was his roared at the thought of Lucian even looking at her, and Sloane groaned at the realization. She had been invited there for a purpose, that much was certain, and because of that he should stay away. But the primitive part of him now viewed her as his alone, which made staying away very difficult indeed. His instincts screamed at him to follow her, to make sure that she got to her bungalow safely.

He couldn’t. She wasn’t his. And he had sworn off entanglements with humans not six months earlier. Sloane’s heart clenched in his chest at the memory of Sully, who had been twenty-two when they had met and the one friend in whom Sloane had been able to share his true nature. That friend had died at the age of ninety-three, gray and frail and so utterly human that it broke Sloane’s heart.

No. He couldn’t go through that again. Moreover, he wouldn’t. Not only was it his grief that he was thinking of, but also that of any human he would be involved with romantically.

How would it feel to age when your lover stayed frozen at thirty-four, before the prime of his life had even hit him? It was a disastrous situation to imagine all around.

With more effort than he could recall ever making, Sloane turned deliberately away from the direction Isla had gone. It was like walking through quicksand, but he did it.

He walked away.

* * *

“The woman is back on resort property.” On the other end of Lucian’s phone, Marcus sounded weary. “She is safe. She was with Goldhawk.”

“Goldhawk?” Lucian scowled, even as his mind began to turn over how he could work that to his advantage. The only reason that Goldhawk had been allowed to live on the island without joining the clan was because they had a history. The fact that Goldhawk wasn’t aware of that shared history, and wouldn’t see his revenge coming, made Lucian’s plans all the sweeter.

“There’s more. Goldhawk scented me, and he warned me off.” Lucian’s eyebrows rose in surprise, and then he began to laugh, the sound mirthless even though he was pleased.

This was too perfect. Sloane Goldhawk had just tied everything up in a neat bow and delivered it right into his lap.

“He warned you off Isla Miller?” That meant that the beast inside of Sloane had claimed Isla as his own. That made two women for whom they had both had feelings. As Lucian thought of Ana, and of how Sloane had broken the once-sweet beauty, fury began to haze his vision with red.

Yes, it was too bad for Sloane that Lucian would win this round. And Sloane would never see it coming.

Chapter 4

A
s Isla’s ancient laptop booted up, she started the water for her bath. Wishing for some kind of fruity, girly bubble bath, Isla logged on to the resort’s wireless network and opened up her email. She wasn’t expecting anything in her in-box besides an email from Jessie, nagging her for not checking in yet.

That email from her friend was surprisingly not there, but one from her mother was. Her mother harbored none of the same warm feelings toward Isla that Jessie did, so Isla wasn’t too excited to see the waiting message.

“Crap.” Isla was tempted to just delete the message without reading it—it was only going to make her feel bad—but she couldn’t just disown her sisters and ignore her mother.

The email was a response to the phone message that Isla had left before she had left, telling her mother where she would be and what she would be doing. The email was short, to the point and hurt like hell.

Isla,

I am very disappointed that you have decided to run off to some tropical island without discussing it with me first. More, I am appalled that you have chosen a destination called
Vampire Island
. Vampires? Isla, you know how I feel about this. It isn’t good for you to socialize with people who are fascinated with those things.

I want you to come home right now. If you need a vacation, surely we can find a more suitable spot.

Mother

PS: How can you afford a holiday in Tahiti right now? I hope you aren’t dealing drugs.

Isla barked out a laugh that sounded strangely, even to her ears, like a wail. Setting her laptop down gingerly on the bathroom counter, she then turned off the faucet to the tub with a hard wrench of her wrists and stared at the small drip that remained, disturbing the clear and otherwise smooth surface of the liquid.

She didn’t know why these kinds of interactions with her mother still upset her. They were nothing new, after all—they’d been occurring ever since Isla’s teen years, when she hadn’t shown the wicked intelligence and drive of her two sisters, one of whom was a plastic surgeon, the other an astrophysicist. Isla’s mother—a single mother since the death of Isla’s father nearly twenty years earlier—was a hugely successful prosecutor, and her attitude to her least impressive daughter was only slightly different than it was in the courtroom.

Isla restrained the urge to throw the laptop into the bath or, better yet, right into the ocean right beneath her feet. Every bad feeling that she’d ever had about herself came swimming to the surface as her mother’s words circled through her brain.

But an image of Sloane—tall, tasty Sloane—flashed through her memory, and with it came a wave of heat. He had flirted with her—if she went out on a limb, she would even say that he wanted her. And because she found that she wanted him right back, that was actually quite a spectacular aspect of her trip right there.

If she went home, she would lose the chance to explore that.

If she stayed here, would she explore it anyway?

Suddenly Isla’s feelings shifted from guilt to anger—anger at herself for letting her mother make her feel this way yet again, and anger at her mother for doing this to her.

Before she lost her nerve, Isla swung her feet out of the tub. Maybe she’d gotten too much sun that day, but she was feeling...different. Sexy. Braver. She had no idea where the feelings had come from, but she was going to follow through with them while she still felt bold enough to follow through.

Hastily she brushed her teeth and ran a comb through the long tangles of her hair. Flinging open her suitcase, she pulled out a fresh sundress and tugged it over her head, deciding to forgo any underwear at all.

She was going to be brave and seduce Sloane Goldhawk into a holiday fling—or at the very least a hot one-night stand. What did she have to lose?

Slipping her feet into rubber flip-flops, Isla flung open the door of her bungalow and blinked. It was now full night, the dock lit with torches. In the distance she could see the resort bustling with far more activity than it had been earlier in the day.

Instead of shrinking from it, she found it comforting. She could hide among the crowd rather than feeling singled out as she had that afternoon.

At the point where the dock met the water she met Gaspar. He held a bucket of ice and a bottle of what appeared to be champagne.

“Just the lovely guest that I was looking for,” he said with that same flirtatious smile.

Half of her felt the need to acquiesce, to follow Gaspar back to her accommodations and accept the wine with a polite smile and whatever conversation was needed to get him out of her hair. The other half was feeling a bit wild. That overwhelming need to bare her teeth again overcame her, and she actually did it. She hissed.

Even without the champagne, she felt drunk on her boldness and smiled widely, aggressively, at the man, who seemed a bit taken aback by the change in her attitude.

“May I?” Gaspar didn’t seem overly pleased to do so, but he passed the bucket and bottle into Isla’s extended arms. The chill of metal caused gooseflesh to prickle her skin.

With a nod of thanks, she walked as fast as she could in the direction of the beach, toward the lone houseboat that she could see anchored in the distance. Her gut told her that that was where Sloane lived.

Nerves skittered through her frame as the reality of what she was about to do hit her. She clutched the bottle of wine ever more tightly to her chest as she walked.

She had a feeling that she was going to need it.

* * *

“She hissed at you?” This was music to Lucian’s ears. Gaspar babbled on, but Lucian only half listened.

He had already known, but the knowledge that Isla’s vampire blood was coming to the fore in this environment thrilled him.

It was rare for a vampire to bear young. When they did, their offspring all carried their vampire heritage in their blood. But it was rare—very, very rare—for a vampire to be born rather than made.

Still, it happened. Isla was one, and all she needed was a vampire’s bite to activate the rest of her powers in her blood, locked as they were beneath her human DNA.

Born vampires were stronger, faster. Better. And this one carried his genes within her. He needed her blood to become well again.

“That will be all, Gaspar.” He pressed a button on his phone, and a buzzer sounded. Moments later a naked young man entered his office, his hands bound behind his back. His skin was pale, littered with red scars from bites.

His eyes, when he looked at Lucian, spoke of his hunger to be fed on.

“Come here, boy.” Hunger and arousal stirred in Lucian’s gut. He wanted to celebrate the news that Gaspar had just given him. He could smell the boy’s excitement as he crossed to the desk and sat on Lucian’s lap.

Lucian’s fangs slid through his gums, and he bit into the boy’s neck without preamble. The young man shuddered as the pleasure of the bite washed through his frame.

Lucian sucked, drawing the life force into his veins. Soon, he reminded himself, soon.

Soon he would drink from the neck of Isla. Soon he would again be well.

* * *

Sloane sat on the upper deck of his houseboat, a glass of icy-cold sipping tequila in his hand. After the day that he had had, he wanted nothing more than to have a drink, or maybe two, and obliterate all thoughts from his head.

As the smooth, cold liquid slid down his throat, burning a fiery path straight to his gut, Sloane inhaled deeply, a habit that he had never managed to break himself of. When the indescribable smell of Isla filled his nostrils, he froze, not sure if it was real or a memory that was haunting him.

That tropical, sweet scent intensified, and Sloane knew that she was near. When he heard her tentative tread on the deck of the boat, he tossed back the contents of his glass and stood, looking down to the deck of his boat.

“Hi.” The woman’s eyes as she looked up at him were wide and a bit wary, as they should be. He knew why she was here, and though half of him thrilled to it, the other half wanted to warn her away.

“What are you doing here?” Sloane felt the prickle of his fangs at his gums. She wore another thin sundress, this one a pale pink, and she looked so sweet and innocent that he had to clench his fists against the urges rioting through him.

“I don’t entirely know.” Her honesty caught him off guard, a rare sensation for him. Before he could formulate a response, she was climbing the ladder to the upper deck, a bottle clutched tightly in one hand.

Once on level ground again, she stood in front of him, her posture more open than shy, as it had been earlier in the day. He could hear her heartbeat skitter, speeding up and then slowing down, and knew that she was nervous.

It added a delicious note to the scent of her blood, and it made his mouth water.

“Here.” Isla held out the bottle. Sloane didn’t move, and she huffed out an impatient breath.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Isla’s eyes narrowed, and he saw a hint of the fire that she had teased him with earlier. “Were you just leading me on when you were flirting with me earlier, then? Is that all it was?”

He might have had the strength to play the arrogant asshole if he hadn’t heard the thread of vulnerability that ran through her voice. “Hmm.” For a long moment she simply stood there, assessing him. He could still sense the nerves that rioted within her and wondered if she was going to stay or go.

“You have a hot tub on your boat?” Sloane wasn’t sure what to do with that abrupt change in conversation, so he began to peel the foil off the bottle of champagne she had handed him. Maybe more alcohol would calm the need that was pumping through him—the need to completely possess the beautiful woman who stood in front of him, silhouetted in the moonlight.

“It’s a pretty common feature on houseboats these days.” He watched as she wandered over to the hot tub and, bending, dipped her hand into the warm water. “I don’t use it often, but I felt the urge to tonight.”

“You must have read my mind.” Isla inhaled deeply, drinking in the night air, then turned away from him. His gaze raked over her shapely backside and then up, watching as she pulled her long ropes of hair up, twisting them into a knot on the top of her head.

“What are you doing?” He growled at the sight of her neck, slender, naked and soft white. She looked back over her shoulder, free of pretense, and he could tell that she felt just as much of the deep desire, the connection, that ran between them.

“You said I wasn’t skinny-dipping properly this afternoon.” He heard her heart rate kick up yet another notch as she climbed up the two steps to the hot tub, then kicked off her flip-flops. She stepped delicately into the tub, humming with pleasure as the warm water hit her skin.

“Isla.” Sloane’s mouth grew dry, and he couldn’t stop his fangs from poking through his gums. “I...I thought I had better give it another try.”

Facing away from him and crossing her arms at her waist, she bent and clasped the cotton candy–colored hem of her dress in her hands. Sloane couldn’t take his eyes off her as she lifted the fabric up over her head and off.

“Fuck.” The woman wasn’t wearing a thing underneath her dress. His erection was sudden and painful, pressing against the waistband of his shorts uncomfortably. “Isla. What do you want from me?”

She looked back over her shoulder at him, her eyes luminous. He cursed himself when he saw doubt begin to form there. Surely she knew how beautiful she was, naked and gleaming in the moonlight.

“If you don’t know by now, then you need to get out more.” Her words were humorous, but Sloane sensed that they were a cover for that doubt. He couldn’t bear the idea of her thinking that he didn’t want her, especially when it was all that he could do not to bend her over the tub and thrust deep inside of her with both his cock and his fangs.

“You’re so beautiful.” Crossing to the hot tub, he set the bottle of wine on the ledge and pulled his T-shirt over his head, hearing her quiet sigh of relief at the same time.

“You don’t have to say things like that, Sloane.” Her voice was quiet, and she sank down until the water hit her hips. He couldn’t see her face, but he heard the sadness in her voice. “As long as you want me, that’s enough.”

“Fuck that.” Ripping his shorts off with one hand and painfully retracting his fangs so as not to scare her, he slid into the tub behind her and clasped his arms tightly around her waist, pulling her back against his raging erection.

“If I say that you’re beautiful, it’s because I think that you are.” Clasping her tightly, he arched his hips, pressing his cock into the crevice between her buttocks, savoring the shiver that passed over her skin. “Does this feel like I’m not attracted to you?”

“N-no.” Could he do this? Could he take her without biting her? The hunger was so tightly entwined with sex for all of his kind.

He had to try, had to possess at least some aspect of this beguiling, titian-haired human.

“Remember that then.” Releasing his tight grasp, he created mere inches of space between them. Bending down—she was so small—he placed a hot, moist, openmouthed kiss at the base of her spine.

“Oh.” That tiny syllable, fallen so innocently from her lips, was full of wonder. Sloane was suddenly sure that she had never before been treated properly—never been shown how incredibly sexy she was.

He was a goner. No matter the consequences, he had to have her. Had to have her now.

Focusing hard on keeping his fangs in check, he kissed his way up her spine, pausing to nip at the nape of her neck. His slid his hands from her waist up to cup her breasts, massaging their heavy weight, reveling in the responsiveness of her nipples, which contracted beneath his touch.

“Do you like that?” Slowly, sensually, he played his fingers over her breasts. She moaned and arched her back, pressing her flesh into his hands.

“Oh. How are you... Oh.” Sloane was nearly undone by her response. He had barely touched her and she was already writhing against him. He hissed when her curvy behind made contact with his pelvis, pressing against the solid length of his erection.

“Shh. Just relax and enjoy.” Arching his hips into her bottom once, Sloane groaned and forced himself to pull back. It was too soon, though he suspected that she was already ready for him.