The Vampire Affair Read online

  That just went to prove that he didn’t really know her that well after all.

  Filled with a turmoil of emotions that tumbled nearly out of control, she didn’t let herself think too much about what she was doing as she sat down on a bench and yanked her shoes and socks off. The sweatpants followed, and then she peeled out of the unitard. She held the garment in her hand for a moment as she steeled herself for what she was about to do. Concern for Michael welled up and pushed aside the anger, the distrust, the frustration and the jealousy. She still felt all those things to an extent, but right now she just wanted to make sure he was all right, and she knew of only one way to do that.

  She dropped the unitard on the bench and walked to the corner. The heat had returned to her lower body, pooling there like molasses, slow and sweet, and her legs felt a little shaky as they carried her around the corner. The rushing sound of the shower filled her ears, and tendrils of steam from the hot water drifted around her.

  She stopped short at what she saw. Michael stood with his back to her, his hands resting on the tile wall at shoulder height to support him as he leaned forward and let the water from the showerhead pound down over his head, soaking the short, dark blond hair. She saw that she’d been right in her guess about his body. He was muscular, but not grotesquely so. Instead his shape denoted sleek, swift power, like that of a wolf or a panther. His broad shoulders and strong torso tapered to a lean waist and trim hips. His thighs and calves, lightly covered with hair, looked like they could carry him for miles and miles at a ground-eating lope if they had to.

  Tension gripped him, and that tautness could be seen from his buttocks up to his shoulders. The impulse to massage the hurt out of him came over Jessie, and she had all she could do not to step forward and rest her hands on his shoulders, then lean her head against his back and mold her naked body to his. She imagined herself doing it and could almost hear his groan of delight as flesh met flesh.

  She stayed where she was, though, just inside the big shower area. She hadn’t come in here to gawk at him, or to fool around with him under that cascading water, no matter how tempting that idea was. Instead she had come for answers, and she was determined to have them.

  “Michael,” she said.

  He turned, fast and sure on his feet in spite of the slippery conditions. Jessie got her first look at his bare chest with its neat mat of hair slightly darker than what grew on his head. Stopping her eyes from following that trail of hair down to his groin would have been impossible. She caught her breath. Unrestrained, his manhood was even more impressive than she had thought it would be. She forced her gaze away from the long, thick shaft, lifting her eyes instead to the hard, angry planes of his face.

  “What the devil are you doing in here?” he asked in a voice husky with strain.

  She moved closer to him, her muscles functioning seemingly of their own volition. “That all depends on you,” she said as she stopped and faced him. “Who the hell is Charlotte?”

  Chapter 9

  S hock was one thing. What Michael Brandt experienced as he turned around in the shower and saw Jessie standing a few feet away from him, totally nude, was something else entirely. In the back of his mind, a warning voice chided him that he never should have allowed her to slip up on him undetected like that. He had gotten careless because he was upset, and that was unacceptable.

  For the most part, though, he was simply stunned by how beautiful she was and by how much he wanted her.

  He had known from seeing her in the unitard what an exquisite shape she possessed, but the sight of her nude sent fire coursing along his veins and electrified every nerve in his body. Her breasts rode high and proud on her rib cage, firm but not overly large and tipped with dark brown nipples. She had no tan lines; her Cherokee heritage gave her skin the same creamy blend of red and gold and brown all over. The curve of her hips enticed his eyes as they flowed into strong thighs. A neat triangle of midnight-dark hair nestled at the juncture of those thighs and drew his gaze, as well. His heart hammered with desire in his chest as he looked at her, trying not to stare but unable to tear his eyes away. Passion sparked and tingled and heated his bloodstream seemingly to the boiling point. He felt himself growing and hardening and knew that she saw his reaction. Her awareness of it, the sudden quickening of her breath as her breasts rose and fell, just increased his arousal that much more.

  And yet, no matter what incredible sensations filled him at this moment, he couldn’t set aside what she had just said. She had asked him a question…a question that he didn’t want to answer. Who the hell is Charlotte?

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” he said.

  Jessie reached up and pulled the hair band from her ponytail. She shook her hair free so that it spilled in dark waves around her shoulders. Michael felt his teeth grate together as he clenched his jaw even tighter. He wouldn’t have thought it possible that she could excite him even more, but she had succeeded in doing just that.

  “Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” she said, and he could tell from the faint tremble in her voice that she was having trouble controlling her own emotions. “When you call a woman by another woman’s name, it is definitely her business, Michael.”

  Stubbornness welled up inside him and momentarily conquered desire. “Charlotte has nothing to do with you.”

  “I checked you out on the Internet before I ever approached you with an interview request,” she said as she moved closer to him. “I read everything I could find about you. I made a list of every race you’ve won and every woman you ever dated. I’m trying to remember—”

  She stopped short, her breath hissing between her teeth, and Michael bit back a groan. He hadn’t been able to keep everything about Charlotte out of the papers, although he had done the best he could, and clearly Jessie had just recalled where she’d heard the name before in connection with him.

  “Charlotte Whittier,” she said. “She was English, some sort of heiress. You dated her for a little while, and then…she died. Oh my God. I remember now. She came down with some sort of disease and…and the doctors couldn’t save her.”

  This had to be one of the worst moments of his life, Michael thought, standing here naked in a hot shower with a woman he wanted desperately, yet forced at the same time to remember his greatest failure, the greatest loss he had ever suffered.

  It had taken a small fortune in Brandt family money to cover up what had happened to Charlotte, to make it appear as if she had gone into a private clinic to be treated for some mysterious disease when really she never entered the hospital at all. The death certificate, the small, private funeral with the closed coffin so that the paparazzi couldn’t sneak any pictures of Charlotte, according to the story told to her grieving family…those things had cost a lot to set up. Michael had spent the money, though, because he didn’t want anyone to know the truth. Didn’t want to reveal his own shame and guilt.

  Didn’t want the world to know that he had allowed the woman he loved to be turned into a vampire. A soulless, bloodsucking monster.

  He twisted away from Jessie as an inarticulate cry of rage welled up his throat. His right hand clenched into a fist and hammered against the shower wall in a single blow that cracked the tile where it landed. Michael didn’t even feel the impact.

  But he felt the light touch on his shoulder and knew it belonged to Jessie. A part of him wanted to turn to her and seek comfort in her embrace, but he wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. The pain belonged to him alone. He had never shared it with anyone. He certainly couldn’t unload any of it on this woman he had known only a few days, no matter how much he was drawn to her.

  Jessie didn’t go away, though. She rested her other hand on his other shoulder. She stood right behind him now, mere inches away. He felt the warmth of her breath on the back of his neck, and then suddenly—oh, God!—the soft heat of her lips on him.

  She started kissing him just under his hairline, and each brush of her lips agains
t the sensitive skin sent more explosions of need and desire bursting along his nerves. The water from the shower washed over them both now as she trailed kisses along the line of his right shoulder. When she came to the end of it, he had no choice but to turn and face her.

  She was almost as tall as he was, so when she slipped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to hers, he didn’t have very far to go. Her mouth found his with a desperate longing that he shared. Passion washed over him with an even greater force than the pounding of the hot water that enveloped them. His arms went around Jessie’s wet, slick body seemingly of their own accord. He needed her with an undeniable need. Needed the release of plunging into her, wrapping himself in her heat, losing himself in everything that was good and sweet and right about her. Guilt and grief had been eating away at his soul for too long.

  His hands roamed over her body, sliding and caressing and exploring her curves until they cupped her ass and pulled her against him. He and Jessie molded together beautifully. He felt the searing heat of her thighs as they trapped his shaft between them.

  Her lips opened to his questing tongue, and if the kiss the day before had been good, this one, shared while they were wet and naked, was earth-shattering. Michael felt the frantic beating of her heart and knew she must feel his heart hammering, as he did hers. That drew his right hand to her left breast. He cupped the firm flesh and found the hard bud of her nipple with his thumb, stroking it and making it grow even harder and more prominent.

  Her hips pumped against him as his touch teased her excitement to higher and higher levels. His manhood thrust between her legs and with each drive of her hips he felt the slick folds of her sex rubbing against the top of his shaft. He needed to be inside her, and her actions told him she shared that need.

  She lifted her left leg and wound it around his hips. He reached down and got his right hand under it to support her. He spread his feet to brace himself and leaned back with his shoulders against the wall for additional support. Neither of them had to speak as he lifted her right leg, too, and held her up with effortlessness while she twined both legs around him. Her arms were still wrapped around his neck, her open mouth still locked to his as their tongues danced and darted around each other.

  The head of Michael’s shaft prodded at the entrance to Jessie’s core. He lifted her a little, positioning her with ease, and then lowered her so that he sheathed himself slowly within her, penetrating bit by bit, inch by inch. The searing heat of her sex surrounded him, awakening the impulse to drive hard into her and fill her with one swift lunge. He resisted, though, sensing that salvation might be even sweeter if it came slowly and deliberately. For the first time in years he felt the bonds that had been wrapped tightly around his very being loosening at last.

  It felt good. Better than it had ever been before.

  Finally he was buried as deeply within Jessie as he could reach, and for a long moment he stood absolutely still so that he could revel in the sensation of being fully joined with her. Then he rocked his hips a little, and she rocked hers back. They fell easily into the most natural rhythm of all, the universal rhythm of passion. The fleeting wish that he could caress her all over while he was thrusting in and out of her flashed through Michael’s mind, but he had to keep his hands under her thighs to support her. Time enough to vary things later, he told himself, and he prayed that there would be a later for the two of them.

  But even if there wasn’t, even though that possibility might fill him with dread if he thought about it too much, for now no room existed in his brain for anything except their lovemaking. Jessie completed him, filled in holes that he hadn’t even known were there. She washed away everything bad about the world, leaving only the two of them and this wonderful thing they shared.

  Her hips moved faster now, and so did his. They rocked against each other, an explosive culmination building within each of them. Michael knew he couldn’t hold back for long and sensed that Jessie wouldn’t want him to. Sweet release beckoned for both of them.

  When she gasped against his mouth and he felt a shudder begin to ripple through her, he let go, driving into her and allowing his own climax to erupt. With surge after surge, he achieved the release he so desperately needed. She quaked in his embrace, gripping him tightly with her arms and legs as spasms shook her. She tore her lips away from his and tipped her head back, eyes closed, as she uttered a hoarse cry of completion.

  Still locked together as intimately as they could be, they shared the long, slow, luxurious slide down the far side of the peak they had just crested. Michael had no trouble holding her up, but the muscles of his legs began to grow limp as they inevitably relaxed. Carefully, keeping his shoulders against the tiles to steady himself, he slid down until he sat on the floor at the base of the wall. He even managed to keep his softening member inside Jessie as he did so, although it was inevitable that he would slip out of her eventually. He knew he would feel a pang of loss when that happened and hoped that Jessie would, too.

  She rested her head on his shoulder. Her breasts were still molded to his chest. Now that he didn’t have to support her weight with his arms anymore, his hands were free to rove. He stroked her back and shoulders with the left one while the right reached up to caress the line of her jaw and tease her earlobe. Jessie sighed deeply in apparent satisfaction.

  It didn’t last, though. After a couple of minutes she lifted her head and looked into his eyes, and he knew that trouble was coming.

  “All right, Michael,” she said. “You’re going to have to tell me the truth.”

  It would have been so much easier, Jessie reflected, to just sit there cradled on his lap with his arms around her and bask in the afterglow of their lovemaking.

  Easier…but more cowardly. She had never been one to take the path of least resistance. She always bucked the tide, forged ahead against the odds. Her hardscrabble upbringing and her very nature demanded it.

  She supposed that making love with Michael Brandt had been her intention all along, otherwise she wouldn’t have walked into the shower room naked like that. She was a big girl; she knew what was likely to happen in that situation, even though she’d told herself when she went in that her only goal was to confront him about Charlotte.

  But in all honesty, she hadn’t even been thinking about sex when she reached out to touch him. She had seen the terrible pain in his eyes, and at that moment all she had wanted to do was comfort him.

  That changed quickly enough once she laid her hands on his shoulders and started kissing the back of his neck. She still had the desire to comfort him, but another desire had risen up in an unstoppable tide—the desire to merge with him and know him fully.

  She had satisfied the physical part of that need, for the time being, but the emotional part still remained unfulfilled. He still had secrets that needed to be brought out into the light of day. She had placed her life in his hands, and she deserved to know the truth.

  Besides, as wonderful as it had been, lovemaking would only heal so much. To totally purge the pain that haunted him required openness and honesty.

  So she didn’t cut him any slack when he shook his head and started trying to claim that he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “Yes, you do,” she insisted. “Tell me the truth about Charlotte…and what happened to her.”

  His mouth tightened, and she knew her lucky guess had been on the mark. Michael’s brief relationship with Charlotte Whittier had been years earlier. Even given the possibility that he had fallen hard for her and grieved at her death, by now that grief should have faded into fond memories and a bittersweet sense of loss and regret. Not the searing agony that Jessie had seen in his eyes.

  Not unless he had something to do with Charlotte’s death. Not unless he considered himself somehow to blame for what happened to her.

  He must have seen the determination in her eyes, because he sighed and said, “Not in here. Let’s dry off and get dressed.”

  She slippe
d off him and stood up. He joined her under the showerhead for a few moments as they let the water sluice over them in a last rinse. The water had started to cool off some anyway, Jessie told herself wryly.

  In the locker room Jessie wrapped herself in a towel and tucked it in, then used another to dry her hair. She couldn’t help herself—she stole an occasional glance at Michael as he dried off. With his short hair wet and more tousled than ever, he managed to be heartbreakingly cute and breathtakingly handsome at the same time. A throb of longing went through her, and not only because she wanted to feel his hardness inside her again. She wanted to feel his arms around her and wrap her arms around him so that they could hang on to each other forever.

  Fresh sweats and underwear in her size hung in one of the lockers, just as they had the day before. Jessie put them on and finger-combed her wet hair. Michael had already gotten dressed and left the locker room, and she didn’t want to give him the chance to change his mind, now that he had finally decided to open up to her.

  When she came out into the gym, she saw him standing on the far side of the big room, staring at the mat where they had been practicing earlier. He didn’t turn around when she came up behind him, although she knew he must have heard her footsteps.

  “Charlotte never could get that move down, either,” he said without looking at her. “She always fell when she tried to launch into the handspring.” His head moved from side to side in a grim shake. “Not that it would have helped her all that much, I suppose.”

  Jessie moved around in front of him so that she could see his face. “We are talking about Charlotte Whittier, aren’t we? From when you were in England, what, eight or nine years ago?”

  He said nothing, still not looking at her.

  “It’s not your fault that she got sick, Michael,” Jessie went on. “I remember reading about it. Her father was in the Foreign Service, and the doctors thought it was some bug she picked up overseas when she was just a little kid. It’d lain dormant until—”