LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t I?”

      A crushed look swept across her features before she contained her emotions. “Of course. I understand how expensive it is for you to show—”

      “Your masterpieces,” he said, and because he couldn’t sit there any longer, staring at her wounded, doe-brown eyes, he rose and stalked across the loft to her work area.

      As he had two days earlier, he stood before her paintings, admiring the sweep of her brush as it almost made love to the figures she had placed on the canvas. The movement of the brushstrokes was so alive, he found himself laying his fingertips against the image on the canvas as if to prove to himself that they weren’t real.

      Ramona wondered what he was doing as he stood there, scrutinizing her artwork once more. When he raised his hand and touched the canvas, she had to go see what had drawn him. She set the mug on the table and joined him.

      When he ran his fingertips along the line of the woman’s hip in the painting, tracing the slender sweep of her waist, Ramona imagined his hand against her own body. Imagined how it would be for him to touch her the way he caressed the woman on the canvas—the woman she had imagined herself to be, lost in the throes of a lover’s embrace.

      As he shifted his hand upward, over the shadow beneath the woman’s breast, she felt his energy beside her. Sensed his growing desire and her own.

      When he looked at her, his ice-blue eyes blazed with fire. “Did you feel this way as you painted?”

      She had felt that way and more. But she couldn’t confess that with each stroke of the brush, she had imagined it was them together.

      “No,” she said.

      But he faced her and, laying a hand at her waist, murmured “Liar.”

      He bent from his larger height, but she was already meeting him halfway, wanting to experience him if only for this one moment. A moment that had sprung from nowhere, but was not to be missed.

      His lips were a bit cold, but wonderfully soft on hers. They sampled the edges of her mouth as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close.

      The body she had admired from afar was much like she had imagined. Big. Strong. Firm.

      He was hard beneath her hands as she grabbed hold of his shoulders. Hard against the flatness of her belly as he swept his arm beneath her buttocks and drew her to him.

      She moaned at the thought of that hardness within her. Of his big body urging her downward into the softness of the bed that was just at the other side of the loft.

      Her whimper of need jolted Diego from the enjoyment of her response.

      As right as she felt in his arms, this was wrong, he thought, and slowly eased away from her.

      “Perdóname, Ramona. This should never have happened.”

      “You’re right. I’m sorry, too,” she said, and shifted away, nervously rubbing her palms up and down the front of the figure-hugging jeans she wore.

      He reached out and took her hands to stop the jittery motion. “Please don’t take this wrong, little one. It’s not you, it’s me.”

      “You’re gay?” she squeaked, obviously confused by his statement.

      “No, not at all,” he began with a chuckle. “I’m just a…heartbreaker. A cad.”

      “A cad? Fossilized much?” she teased uneasily at his choice of the rather old-fashioned term.

      “Let’s just say I’ll break your heart, and I’d rather not do that.”

      She slipped her hands from his and nodded. “I get it, Diego. No harm, no foul.”

      “Right,” he said, only he didn’t think either of them believed that there had been no harm.

      After the heat of that kiss, their relationship would never be the same, and that wasn’t a good thing.

      Diego was always amused by a visit to the Lair. His friend Ryder had managed to create quite a tongue-in-cheek homage to his vampire self. From the faux stone walls to the hundreds of realistic bats clinging to the ceiling, everything about the establishment created the illusion of being in a cavern deep belowground.

      As Diego strolled to the bar, he smiled at the sign for the club, which dripped neon blood from its bright red letters onto the gleaming stainless steel surface below.

      Diego realized the crowd here only liked to play at being in the darkness, unlike those who frequented the Blood Bank, where he used to hang out before meeting Ryder nearly two years ago. Up until then, he and Esperanza had visited the place fairly regularly, knowing that they could always sip from a willing neck or drink the bloody libations the Blood Bank carried for its vamp clientele. Totally unlike Ryder’s club, which had a strict No Bite No Blood policy.

      Diego had to acknowledge that coming here and being with Ryder had mellowed him somewhat, making him more of a human wanna-be than ever before. Maybe that was the reason Ramona was now so intriguing. Hanging with Ryder and his friends the past two years had blurred the lines between his true vamp world and the human world to which he could never belong.

      Or maybe it was because his friend Ryder was in love with a human—something Diego refused to consider.

      Ryder approached, his mortal lover at his side. Diana didn’t look well, Diego thought; her pale countenance and slight frame seemed even more delicate than it had just a few weeks ago, when he’d last seen her. As she neared, his vamp senses picked up the unusual thrum of power cast from her body, and he shot a puzzled look at Ryder.

      Had he turned her? he wondered, sensing that there was something more vamp than human about Ryder’s lover. However, Diego knew if there was anyone more adamant than he about not turning anyone, it was Ryder.

      “How are you?” Diego said as he rose and embraced Diana, sensing the fragility in her petite body.

      “I’m fine. What brings you here?” she asked, slipping onto a stool beside him.

      Ryder took a spot behind her, clearly offering her support. She shot him a look that was both grateful and sensual, as if just his touch could rouse her.

      Diego realized it was enough for his friend as he bent and nuzzled the side of Diana’s face in a loving gesture, a human gesture. Even when Ryder dropped his head lower, to the crook of her neck, the vampire stayed in check.

      With the scene too painful to behold, Diego turned away, focusing on the deep red of the wine in his glass. He imagined it was a fresh O positive, to remind himself of what he was. Of why emotion such as that plainly visible on Ryder’s face would bring only pain and despair.

      As Diana picked up her own glass of wine, he once again wondered at her paleness and the power spilling off her body. Of course, Ryder was plastered so close that maybe it was a remnant of his vampire energy that Diego sensed.

      But maybe it was time to press the issue.

      “Bite any good necks lately?” His gaze skimmed to Diana’s jugular before he took an idle sip of his wine.

      Ryder straightened, an angry look on his face. Diana flinched at the remark and her own face darkened with anger.

      “Something on your mind, Diego?” Ryder asked, easing his hand to her shoulder, where he rubbed it back and forth as if to soothe the prickly special agent, who was clearly not amused by Diego’s comment.

      “Diana just seems a bit…under the weather. Maybe she needs a more experienced vamp—”

      The human Ryder had been the one to escort Diana to the bar, but it was his demon side now acting with a vehemence and swiftness Diego hadn’t expected. He found himself lifted off the stool as Ryder snared his neck in one strong hand.

      “Why are you doing this?” his friend hissed against his face, his eyes bleeding out to an intense blue-green as a hint of fang slid downward.

      “Woman

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