The Vampire Affair Page 7

  Clifford turned away from the fireplace and asked bluntly, “What are you going to do with Ms. Morgan?”

  “You heard what I told her,” Michael replied. “She’s one of us now. In the time we have left, we’ll have to start testing and training her, to see what she can do.”

  Max snorted. “What she’ll do is get herself killed, unless it’s even worse and she takes all of us down with her.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Michael snapped. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  “She seems to be an intelligent and resourceful young woman,” Clifford said. “She might make a decent operative…eventually. But it’s going to be too soon for us to take her along on this mission, Michael. Surely you can see that.”

  Michael nodded. Clifford’s words made sense. He had already devoted a considerable amount of thought to this very problem.

  “I promised her that she could join our group. I didn’t say when she could start coming with us on our missions, though.”

  “Now you’re startin’ to make sense,” Max said.

  “But she’s probably going to object,” Clifford warned.

  “She can object all she wants to,” Michael said, “but I’m not going to let her go into dangerous situations until I’m sure that she can handle herself. That’s going to take time. It may never happen. But in the meantime, she’ll feel that she’s part of the team, and she’ll at least get the inside story of what we’re doing. She’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

  Clifford smiled but shook his head. “I have a feeling that Ms. Morgan is the type of person who’s not easily satisfied.”

  “We’ll see,” Michael said.

  So they would see, would they? Jessie thought as she eased the door of her bedroom closed. Anger surged inside her. Despite everything that had happened, despite the promises that he’d made, Michael Brandt still intended to shut her out of his real plans. His promises were empty, the alleged training he intended to put her through nothing but a sham.

  She had started to leave the bedroom to ask him for a robe, but before she’d made it all the way down the hall, she’d heard the voices coming from the living room and stopped to listen. Technically she was eavesdropping, she supposed, but she didn’t feel guilty about it. Not after what had happened to Ted and almost happened to her. She had a right to know what Michael and his cousins were up to. She hadn’t been able to make out all the words, but she understood enough to know that he intended to go back on his word to her.

  She wouldn’t have expected him to be so blunt about it. Chances were he would have watched what he was saying more closely if he hadn’t believed that she was soaking in that big, inviting tub. She had turned on the whirlpool with its low-pitched, pulsing sound. From what Michael had said earlier, he had very keen hearing. He probably heard the whirlpool running and assumed that she was in it.

  Well, he couldn’t have been more wrong—about a lot of things.

  Gritting her teeth, Jessie went back into the bathroom. The mounds of bubbles in the tub stirred as the whirlpool’s currents surged through the hot water. Tendrils of steam rose invitingly. Jessie thought about it for a minute and decided being mad was no reason not to enjoy the sort of luxury she never got to experience. She took her clothes off, and then stepped into the tub.

  A beautiful, delicate fragrance rose from the water, soothing Jessie and calming her jangled nerves. The tub was big enough that she could lie all the way back and let the pulsing whirlpool jets massage her all over.

  Her eyes closed. For the time being she forgot about being angry and gave herself over to the exquisite sensations instead. The caressing warmth, the delicious fragrance, the water caressing her almost like hands…

  This tub was big enough for two people, she suddenly thought. Big enough so that if Michael chose to, he could join her. What would his body look like? Though he had been fully clothed every time she’d seen him, she could tell that he wasn’t muscle-bound. Rather than bulging biceps, his muscles would be smooth and sleek but still packed with power, like bundles of very strong rope. The golden-brown tan of his face told her he was an outdoorsman, and Jessie would have been willing to bet that the tan extended to his torso, his legs, and maybe even other places.

  The thought of those other places intrigued her. Everything else about Michael Brandt was larger than life. Why not…?

  She caught her breath and opened her eyes. She shouldn’t be thinking about such things, not because there was anything wrong with it but because she was still mad at him. He planned to go back on his promise to include her in the battle against the vampires. Of course, he hadn’t exactly said that she could go along with them when they attacked the vampire summit meeting. He had merely implied it.

  Damned devious son of a bitch! He’d known what he was doing all along. She couldn’t ever underestimate him, Jessie told herself, because if she did, then Michael Brandt would always be two jumps ahead of her. His perilous life’s work had trained him to outthink his opponents as well as to outfight them.

  He wouldn’t have such an easy time outthinking her again, she vowed. She’d always been smart, and soon Michael would find out that he couldn’t fool her twice.

  She wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily, nor would she allow him to be overprotective of her.

  Did he think she wouldn’t be any good at killing vampires? True, she had been pretty much useless during the attack on her and Ted, but those damned bloodsuckers had taken her by surprise. Now that she knew they existed, she would know what to expect. She would be prepared for them next time, if there was a next time. What was he so afraid of, anyway? That she would be hurt? Maybe killed? Maybe even…

  Turned into a vampire herself?

  The thought made a shudder go through her. That truly would be a fate worse than death….

  Michael sat bolt upright in his bed. A shout of anger and fear tried to well up his throat, but he forced it back down. Max and Clifford knew about the dreams that haunted him from time to time and wouldn’t think anything of it if they heard him cry out, but Jessie Morgan might hear it, too, and be frightened. He didn’t want that.

  More than ever now after the nightmare that had just replayed itself in his slumber, he was convinced that he couldn’t let anything happen to Jessie. He used the sheet to wipe away the sweat that coated his face, then lay back and let his head sink into the pillow again. Early on in his own training, he had learned how to control his breathing and his heart rate, and he used those techniques now to calm himself.

  He hadn’t asked to become involved with the reporter, but now that he was, he was determined to keep her safe…whether she liked it or not. And no doubt she wouldn’t like it when she found out what he had in mind for her. That was just too bad.

  Because the fate that had taken away from him everything he cared about would never befall Jessie. Michael swore that with every fiber of his being.

  Chapter 7

  “Y ou’re going to be surprised if I wind up kicking your ass, aren’t you?”

  “Very,” Michael said.

  “I won’t be surprised,” Max put in as he stood there with his brawny arms crossed over his chest and a smug grin on his face. “I’ll be astounded.”

  Michael nodded at Jessie. “All right, let’s see what you can do. Attack me.”

  “But don’t hold back,” Max gibed. “Pretend he’s a vampire who’s going to drink your blood.”

  As a child on the rez, Jessie had learned to keep her emotions from showing on her face. That ability came in handy, because when people could tell you were hurt, it usually encouraged them to hurt you even worse. She made use of it now as she faced Michael Brandt in this building that appeared to be a run-down warehouse near downtown Dallas. Inside, though, it was a state-of-the-art gym and training facility.

  They had left Clifford at the Chateaux this morning to monitor the status of the resort deal, as well as communications from other members of the Brandt family tasked wi
th keeping track of the vampire overlords’ movements, such as Michael’s cousin Duncan in London. Michael had explained all that to Jessie over breakfast in the lodge’s kitchen.

  Her throat had still been a little sore this morning where the vampire had choked her the night before, but a couple of cups of hot coffee had made it feel better. Clifford, who seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades, had cooked an excellent breakfast, and the food had improved Jessie’s outlook on life, too.

  “Have you heard how Ted’s doing?” she had asked as she sat at the table in the lodge’s breakfast nook with Michael.

  “Clifford went over to check on him just a little while ago. He had a fairly restful night, considering his four broken ribs.”

  “Four?”

  Michael had nodded. “That’s right. He’s going to be laid up for a while, and it won’t be comfortable. But he’s getting the best of care, and he’ll be fine, Jessie. You can count on that.”

  He had sounded as if he really cared about Ted and was sorry for what had happened to him. She had said, “You must be used to taking care of people who get caught in the middle of your war with the vampires.”

  “We do everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen, but when it does, it’s our responsibility to make things right if we can. Everything we do is pointed toward helping humanity, Jessie, not hurting it.”

  “How altruistic.”

  He’d heard the sarcasm in her voice, and she had seen the quick flare of anger in his eyes. “Call it what you will,” he’d said.

  Maybe she was being too hard on him, she had thought at that moment. Sure, he was rich, which to her had always meant he couldn’t be trusted, and he had lied to her, confirming that instinct on her part. But he really did seem to care about what he was doing, and how it affected other people.

  She had been full of other questions, and she had to admit that he’d been cooperative about answering them. He had explained to her about the “castle” west of Dallas where the vampire summit would be held and how he was trying to buy it so that they could find out more about the place before the summit meeting. In addition he had filled her in on the vampire overlords themselves and how the Brandt family went about battling them. It was fascinating, larger than life, even a little melodramatic, and Jessie wouldn’t have believed a word of it if not for the things she had seen with her own eyes.

  She wondered how much Hollywood was going to pay her for the movie rights to the book she planned to write.

  Michael had also assured her that plumbers would arrive at Nana Rose’s house in Oklahoma today to replace the faulty pipes.

  “I should call her to let her know what’s going on,” Jessie had said. She paused as she reached for her cell phone. “Am I allowed to?”

  Michael had just taken a sip of coffee. He set the cup down and smiled across the table at her. “You can do whatever you like. I’ve told you all along that you’re not a prisoner.”

  Yeah, and you told me I was going to be part of your team, too, she’d thought.

  “Nana Rose,” she said into the phone a moment later, “it’s Jessie.”

  “You think I need you to tell me that?” her grandmother’s voice came back. “How are you this morning?”

  Well, my throat’s a little sore because a vampire tried to choke me to death last night, but it’s okay because I’m sitting across the breakfast table from the most devastatingly handsome man you’ve ever seen. Too bad he’s a liar.

  Since she couldn’t say those things that had gone through her head, she’d said, “I’m fine, but I have some news about that money I was going to send to you.”

  “You can’t send it. That’s all right, I understand. I’ll figure out something else.”

  “No, no, Nana, that’s not it. I’m not sending the money because I already arranged for somebody to take care of the problem for you.” Jessie shot a glance over the table as she added, “It’s all paid for and everything, whatever they need to do, so you don’t have to worry.”

  Michael had nodded silently in confirmation.

  Nana Rose had been surprised and had tried to protest that Jessie shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble, but Jessie assured her, “It was no trouble at all. If you have any other problems, you just let me know and I’ll take care of them.”

  “What did you do, girl, rob a bank?”

  “Hardly.”

  She’d managed to deflect Nana Rose’s questions and finally gotten off the phone. As she closed it and slipped it back into her pocket, she’d looked across the table at Michael. “It’s nice being filthy rich, isn’t it? You can just throw money at any problem and make it go away.”

  He didn’t seem fazed by her obvious disapproval of his wealth. “That only works part of the time. You know the old saying about how money can’t buy happiness.”

  “Or love.”

  She wasn’t sure what prompted her to say that. Maybe the domestic surroundings had something to do with it. The snowy linen tablecloth, the rich fragrance of coffee in the air, that devastatingly handsome man across from her…It was a far cry from eating a bagel over the sink in her studio apartment and then grabbing a cup of Starbucks coffee on her way to whatever story she was trying to hustle up. Wouldn’t it be nice to live this way all the time? she thought.

  Wouldn’t it be even nicer to wake up and see Michael Brandt’s head on the pillow next to hers? To be able to reach out and touch him, to feel her fingertips slide over the stubble on his strong jaw, to have his arms go around her and pull her against him as the warmth of his breath caressed her cheek…

  Yeah, that would be nice, but she didn’t have time for nice. Not while she was on the trail of the story of a lifetime. He planned to string her along and then shut her out of the real excitement, but he might not do that if she showed him that she could take care of herself. She had to take advantage of every opportunity to prove herself to him.

  And that meant doing her best to kick his ass, she reminded herself as she faced him now on the mat that Max had thrown down on the smooth wooden floor of the gym.

  She thought back to her tae kwan do training, then pushed it out of her mind. The best and most accomplished martial artists relied on instinct and muscle memory, both of those things ingrained in them by long hours of training. Jessie launched her attack with a feint that Michael bit on. As his guard opened up, she sprang in the air and snapped a kick at his chest, intending to knock him backward off his feet.

  Instead she suddenly found herself sailing helplessly through the air, unable to stop until she crashed down on the mat with breathtaking force.

  “Jessie!”

  “Jessie,” he said again in an urgent voice as he bent over her. “Jessie, are you all right?”

  Her eyelids fluttered for a moment and then stayed open, but her dark eyes were unfocused. She moaned.

  “Jessie, damn it—”

  He should have known better. Training Jessie was different. She was faster, more assured in her movements than Charlotte had ever been, more of a challenge, and she had launched her attack without any warning, no tell-tale narrowing of the eyes or clenching of the muscles. Her feint was a good one, and he’d had to call on his extra speed to parry the kick she sent at him. His own combat instincts had taken over then, causing him to snatch a grip on her leg, give it a twist and drop her on the mat with a bone-jarring impact.

  What if he’d hurt her? What if he’d broken a bone or given her a concussion?

  Finally her gaze locked in on him, and she said in a low, shaky voice, “T-take it easy…Michael. I just got…the wind knocked out of me.”

  Max stepped forward, an anxious frown on his face. “Do we need to take her to the clinic?”

  “No!” The word burst out of Jessie’s mouth. She was probably afraid that if they ever got her in there, she would never come out. Michael could tell she would have tried to sit up if not for his hand on her shoulder. “No…clinic.” Her chest rose and fell strongly, drawing Michael’s attentio
n to the way that the workout gear she wore molded her breasts. “Just let me…catch my breath.”

  The dark blue unitard and the sweatpants were among the items in the wardrobe that had been delivered to the lodge at the Chateaux this morning. They looked good on her, a fact that Michael was forced to take note of even at a moment such as this when he had a lot more on his mind. He slipped an arm around Jessie’s shoulders and helped her sit up, feeling the smooth play of the muscles under her skin as he did so.

  “What happened?” Max asked with a sarcastic edge to his voice. “I thought you were gonna kick his ass.”

  Jessie sent him a veiled, angry glance but didn’t answer. She turned her dark eyes toward Michael and said, “You didn’t really bite on that feint, did you?”

  “It was pretty obvious what you were trying to do,” he replied with a shrug, letting her think she hadn’t fooled him when she almost had. “But I had to be sure.”

  “And when you were, you countered my move and dumped me on my backside.”

  “It’s less than what a vampire would have done,” he told her, hardening his voice. “He would have been on you with his fangs in your neck a second after you hit the ground.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “No guessing about it. You’d be dead now. But you’d rise again in a few days as…one of them.”

  Michael couldn’t keep the strain out of his voice, and he could tell by the sudden narrowing of Jessie’s eyes that she had heard it, too. He stood up and extended a hand down to her.

  “Come on. I’ll show you a feint that might actually fool somebody.”

  Jessie hesitated, then reached up and clasped his hand so that he could help her to her feet. Her grip was firm and strong and warm, and he found himself wishing he could hold her hand under different circumstances.

  Once she was standing, she slipped her fingers out of his, and he felt a twinge of loss as she broke the contact. She reached behind her to rub her backside for a second. She had landed pretty hard on it, Michael knew, and the mat wasn’t all that padded. She’d probably have a bruise.