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the whole thing and he believes wrongly that Andres will somehow give him answers, and I don’t even know to what. He knows better than to get personally involved in a case, and he can’t even see that he is. It’s dangerous Kelly, for him and for you. You can’t help anyone if you aren’t here anymore.”
    “I know,” she said. “I do. I’m a logical thinker, a facts person, but even so, sometimes, my past finds a way inside my head.”
    “I do know,” he said. “I know because Troy’s story, my story, starts long before Andres. When we were much younger, Troy, myself, and our older brother Evan, came home to find our younger sister and our parents dead.”
    Her eyes went wide. “Oh my God, Aiden. How? Who? Why? Oh…I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry. Forget I asked. But was this before or after you got into law enforcement?”
    “I wouldn’t have brought it up if I wasn’t going to tell you about it but there isn’t a lot to the story. And it was before, and it was the reason we decided to take on the jobs that we do. They died in what was a random, senseless act of violence.” Which wasn’t a lie. A vampire with bloodlust didn’t chose victims any way but the easy way – whoever was in their path. “My point in this is that I’m going to get you out of this alive, but stay that way. Stop playing detective, or become one so you have a partner to watch your back.”
    She studied him a long moment. “Thank you. I should have said that already. I’m glad you were at the bar and I’m glad you’re here now.”
    Their eyes locked and held, a charge crackling in the air, their attraction getting stronger, nearly impossible for him to escape. And he wanted to. He wanted to escape because of the very conversation they were having. His world was about pain and death, about hunting monsters he didn’t want her anywhere near. He needed to get this conversation back to the basics, to talk that amounted to nothing, to the basic shared hunger for food. Not the more primal hunger growing inside him for this woman.
    He picked up his slice of pizza. “Tell me about Paris.”

    She started talking, telling him stories, of poorly spoken French and lost luggage that made him forget the idea was to put small talk between them. Instead, he was laughing at her stories, feeling more and more connected to Kelly.
    When they stood up to head back to the bedroom, he grabbed the empty pizza box and put it in the trash inside her pantry, while she put the plates in the dishwasher. They turned toward each other at the same moment, and he reached out and caught her to keep them from colliding. The touch was hot, electric, consuming. He didn’t even consciously think about what came next. One minute they were staring at each other and the next he was kissing her, or more like devouring her. He lifted her, removing the barrier of his height, allowing himself to deepen the kiss, to taste her more fully. Her legs wrapped around his waist, his hand finding her backside where the shirt had lifted, where a tiny strip of a thong did nothing to cover her. He groaned with the realization, and he knew he should stop now, before he couldn’t think straight, before this went too far. Her hand slid into his hair, caressing his neck, the gentle hunger he felt in her arousing the animal that was his vampire. He could smell her arousal, almost taste the sweetness of her blood again. His gums tingled, and he knew he was in trouble.
    Aiden set her down on the counter, intending to pull away, to end this now, but somehow his lips traveled the delicate curve of her neck, his hands the curves of her high, full breasts. His fingers found the stiff peaks of her plump nipples against her thin shirt. She gasped at the intimate touch and then moaned as he tugged the delicate peaks.
    Hunger roared inside him and he kissed her again, desperate for an outlet to release the heat building inside him, the need to taste her, the need to drink from her. Sex