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have told her who he was and what he’d done. So why had she walked over to him? He braced himself for a slap or worse…as she leaned closer.

      Her breath warm against his throat, she murmured, “I want to…dance…with you.”

      His body hardened. Maybe he’d only imagined the suggestive emphasis she’d put on dance. But he did not imagine the attraction he felt for this beautiful woman. “What’s your name?”

      Her lips curved into a sexy smile of pure amusement. “Brandi.”

      “Brandi?” He waited but she offered no last name, not even when he lifted a brow in question. Instead she reached for him. Her long fingers, with sharp red nails, closed around his hand, and she tugged him to his feet.

      “Be careful,” Julian said, but Conner ignored his friend’s warning and followed where she led him to a dark corner of the crowded dance floor.

      A throaty chuckle, like the purr of a dangerous cat, spilled from her red, glistening lips, as she turned toward him and looped her arms around his shoulders. “You don’t listen, either.”

      “Either? Ingrid warned you to stay away from me,” he surmised.

      She nodded and stepped closer, her breasts rubbing against his chest. “And when people tell me not to do something, it makes me want to do it that much more…”

      A grin tugged at his mouth. “Somehow I don’t think we’re talking about dancing.”

      “Is that what we’re doing?” she asked as she pressed her body against his.

      He swallowed a groan, again not wanting to betray any vulnerability or weakness. Something about this woman, despite her brazenness, reached out to him, eliciting a depth of attraction and emotion he hadn’t felt in decades. Half a century, to be exact.

      “There’s music,” he pointed out, having to shout over the smoky bass and the husky voice of the singer.

      “You don’t do other things to music?” she asked with a sexily arched brow. Like her shiny hair, her eyes glinted in the flash of the strobe light. Green with flecks of gold or silver that glittered.

      “You really don’t listen,” he mused, both relieved and intrigued. “I’m sure Ingrid told you all about me—about all the bad things I’ve done.”

      She smiled and chuckled again, her breasts jiggling against his chest. “I know the bad things you’ve done,” she admitted. “You’ve been very naughty, Conner West. Maybe it’s about time someone finally punished you.”

      The flesh at the base of Conner’s neck tingled, and not just because her nails skimmed over his skin. Julian had been right to caution him about this woman; she was definitely trouble. But it had been half a century since he’d gotten into trouble he couldn’t handle. A person was fortunate, or in his case unfortunate, to meet his match only once.

      Worried that he already knew the answer, he asked, “And you’re the one who will finally give me what I have coming to me?”

       Hell, yeah…

      “I’m the only one,” Brandi promised him as she pressed closer…so not even a fraction of space separated her flesh from the taut hardness of his body. Her pulse quickened then raced with excitement…and attraction.

      She’d worked too hard for this, waited too long to be distracted from her mission…even by him. Especially by him. Heat penetrated his tailored suit and shirt, and her skin warmed until she flushed. With desire?

      She drew in a breath, bracing herself to resist him and his sexy-as-hell charms. His blue eyes twinkled with fascination and mischief, and his grin widened, creasing his cheeks with deep dimples. God, he was handsome—insanely, unfairly handsome.

      He moved, sliding his thigh between her legs. Her skirt rode up, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything but the pressure building inside her. She was close…too close to her goal, to vengeance…

      She couldn’t—she shouldn’t—think about anything but that. But she could think only of him, of the impressive erection pressing against her abdomen, as his leg shifted again, sliding between her thighs…back and forth across the heat of her panties. Her feet left the floor, so that she had to hang on to him, her arms wrapped tight around his shoulders. Her nails tangled in the silky curls at his nape.

      Desire coursed through her, and she gasped at the intensity of it. Her nipples pebbled, peaking against the satin. The silky fabric caressed the sensitive points, as she longed for him to caress them. To caress her…

      Dipping his head close to hers, his mouth brushing her ear, he murmured, “You’re so hot…”

      “And here I was warned that you might burn me,” she admitted.

      That wicked grin of his flashed again, revealing just the faintest hint of fang, while those devastating blue eyes twinkled with a sensual threat. “So you’re not afraid to play with fire?”

      Her heart knocked against her ribs, beating hard and fast with fear. But she blithely lied, “I like to play—” she stretched up his body, so that her lips skimmed across his throat, her fangs just scraping his skin “—with fire…”

      He shuddered, but his hands tightened on her waist and he pulled her away from him. Her legs trembled as her feet touched the floor again.

      “We can’t,” he said, “not here…” He leaned closer, his mouth pressed to her ear, his breath warm against her skin. “If anyone sees us…”

      A vampire who exposed her or his fangs in public risked revealing the secret and subsequent punishment for the revelation. That punishment was usually death.

      If she could entice him to bite her on the dance floor, she could end it here…

      Quickly. Almost impersonally.

      Panic pressed on her chest, stealing her breath. She hadn’t waited fifty years for quick and impersonal. She wanted vengeance—messy and personal vengeance.

      He slid his tongue across her earlobe and then whispered, “Come home with me…”

      She shivered, remembering the last time he’d spoken those words to her. And just like last time, she lifted her gaze to meet his, and nodded.

      He dipped his head and brushed his mouth across hers, briefly. But then she slid her fingers back into his hair and tugged him down again. She deepened the kiss, pressing her lips tighter to the curve of his. The smile left his mouth and he increased the pressure and parted her lips for the invasion of his tongue. He swept it in and out of her mouth, stroking it over her bottom lip, over her tongue, over her fangs…

      And she was the one who risked everything, who risked revealing a secret she’d never wanted to know. She’d only wanted him…almost as passionately as she wanted him now. The temptation to take what she wanted, to sink her fangs through his skin and drink from his stolen blood…

      She closed her eyes, fighting the temptation—fighting the desire.

      He dragged his mouth from hers and slid his lips across her cheek to her ear. His voice ragged with desire, he implored her, “Come home with me, Brandi…”

      She blinked open her eyes and stared up into the blue depths of his hypnotic gaze. That was all he’d had to do last time—to look at her like that, like he wanted her more than anyone else ever had—and she was helpless to resist him. “Yes, I’ll go home with you…”

      But this time things would end differently between them. She would be the one who walked away; Conner West would be the one who died.

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