Dark Nights: Mistress of the Underground / The Vampire Affair

“Oh, God…” She shuddered as little orgasms went off like firecrackers after the grand finale.

“You convinced me,” he said, groaning, as he pulled from her and flopped onto his back again.

Paige struggled for first her breath, then her voice. “You’re not going to call the cops on me and report the break-in?”

“You didn’t break in,” he reminded her. “You knew the code.”

“God, Paige,” he said as he turned toward her. “That was crazy.”

It was. She needed to stay away from him. Instead, she got closer every time, pulling him deeper and deeper inside her, until he became a part of her. She had thought she’d been strong to come here; she would have been stronger had she stayed away.

“I should go,” she said, trying to sit up, but her limp muscles protested.

And so did Ben, catching her around the shoulders and pulling her against his chest. He groaned, then murmured, “Not yet.”

“I don’t think you have enough energy for another round,” she teased. When she snuggled closer, he groaned again, so she pulled back. Her eyes having adjusted to the darkness and not clouded with her passion for him, she finally noticed the redness around his ribs. “What happened to you?”

“I’m fine.” He dismissed her concern.

She pressed on his chest, and his handsome face twisted with a grimace. “You’re not fine.”

“I don’t believe you when you claim it, either,” he said with a slight grin.

As usual, he was trying to get the focus off himself, but she was having none of it this time. “What happened to you?”

“It’s not a big deal,” he assured her. “I just had a little accident.”

Like that voice inside her head, Sebastian’s words resonated with her: He would do anything to protect you…even risk his own life.

“You got hurt trying to figure out who my stalker is,” she surmised.

He laughed and shook his head. “I’m a surgeon—not a police officer. I’ll leave the investigating to your detective friend. What did Kate say? You must have called her last night to report what happened in your office.”

She nodded.

“So how is her investigation coming?”

“She already has a suspect,” Paige admitted.

“She does?”

She smiled and kissed his chest. “You.”

“Me?”

She moved her head against his shoulder, nodding. “But don’t worry. You’re her suspect, not mine.”

“That’s something, I guess.” He blew out a ragged breath, his pride obviously stinging. “Okay, I guess I can understand why she’d think that.”

“But I don’t, Ben,” she assured him, pressing a kiss against his skin.

His dark eyes flared with passion, and he rolled her onto her back. “Paige…” he murmured as his mouth dipped toward hers.

But before he could kiss her, the beeper rattled on the nightstand, vibrating. “Damn!” he said, reaching for the device. He uttered a curse as he glanced at the screen. “I have to leave….”

“That’s okay,” she said, despite her body’s protest. Her nipples had hardened, her clit pulsing, wet and ready for his possession. Again.

“No, it’s not,” he said, his voice vibrating like the beeper had, but with frustration. “You’re here.”

“Yes.” But she shouldn’t have come. Not to the house. Not to him. Because he never stayed with her—he was never there for her like he was for his patients. And she hated herself for being jealous of them. And she hated him a little for making her feel like that.

His hands skimmed over her bare shoulders, over her breasts, his palms brushing across the hardened nipples. “And we need to talk about that.”

“If you stayed,” she said, sliding her hand over his hip, to the part of him that was reawakening, hard and throbbing, “we wouldn’t be talking.”

He chuckled. “Wait for me. Stay here.” He didn’t wait for her agreement, just jumped out of bed and grabbed his clothes from the floor.

“Ben…”

“Don’t leave.”

As she watched him walk away from her again, she realized that he had never really belonged to her despite those vows they had taken.

She was in less danger from her stalker than she was from Ben. If she fell for him again, as deeply as she had before, there wouldn’t be enough stitches to heal her wounds. Or her broken heart.

Chapter 11

Ringing echoed in Ben’s ear until, finally, the answering machine picked up his call home. Not Paige. Had she left already?

God, if it had been any other patient needing him…

Hell, he still would have left. He’d taken an oath, but despite that, this patient was special. As her lashes fluttered open, he shut his cell. “Hey, there, sweetheart, how are you feeling?”

Weak. Even if he didn’t know how thready her pulse and how low her oxygen levels, he would have recognized the weakness in the way the little girl could barely lift her lids or the corners of her usually smiling mouth.

Her blue eyes brightened as she recognized him, and she forced a smile and murmured, “G-g-good…”

“Liar,” he gently accused her as he chucked her chin. His heart ached as he realized how fragile the child was. With her delicate build, she appeared younger than her nine-and-a-half years. But with all the surgeries she’d had to repair the birth defects to her heart, Adelaide Plumb had been through much more than people many years older than she was. “Where’s your mother?”

“W-work…” But the child couldn’t hold his gaze as she answered him, and he suspected she was lying again. Her single mother was rarely around, often not showing up until after visiting hours were over. Because of work or something else?

Ben suspected something else, but then, because of the secrets he’d learned and the way he’d grown up, he trusted no one.

“I’ll catch up with your mother tonight,” he said. “You need your rest, so you can recover from this last surgery.” The one in which he’d repaired the hole in her heart. He resisted the urge, barely, to lean over and kiss her forehead as her eyes drifted closed again.

With her blond curls and pale skin, she reminded him of Paige. After leaving her room, he took the elevator down to the office level and unlocked the door that opened directly into his office, bypassing the reception area.

Groaning at the ache in his ribs, he dropped into the chair behind his desk and clicked the redial button on his cell. The phone rang and rang before the machine answered again.

“Paige, if you’re there, pick up,” he said, then grimaced as he realized he was ordering her, just as he had ordered her to stay. Paige never responded well to being told what to do or not to do.

She had probably already ignored his order for her to stay away from the club, too. But he needed to convince her that for her own safety, she could have nothing to do with Club Underground. At least with the sun shining brightly, streaking through the blinds at the office windows, he wasn’t too worried about her being out alone. But he hoped like hell she was lying in that bed, waiting for him and listening to his voice on the machine.

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