LITMIR.BIZ

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but I find this all pretty hard to believe. Men like this…this monster are very purposeful in everything they do. Everything they say. Every decision they make. You’re not telling me the whole truth here.”

      “You calling me a liar?” Her head cocked at the slightest angle.

      “Maybe.”

      Moonlight bathed her nose and lower jaw when her chin jutted forward. “Would you blame me if I was lying? At least about certain details?”

      She had a fair point. If she was telling the truth, if the Buried Alive Killer was contacting her, she should be cautious. And she should certainly be afraid. He took another step closer, hoping to get a better look at her. She smelled good, like a new rain. “Why didn’t you just go to the police? What are you afraid of, Maggie?”

      Her response was incredulous. “He says he’ll kill others. Many. And it will be my fault.”

      He looked over her shoulder to the waves crashing in, the foam sweeping the sand clean and smooth. He remembered the night of the shipwreck. Swimming to shore at Clare Point. A new beginning for him and for the sept.

      Arlan shifted his gaze to her again. She was watching him intently. He took a chance and slowly reached out and pushed her hood down. An abundance of blond hair tumbled down her back, smooth and straight and long, and he remembered another woman’s hair the very same color. Same texture.

      Arlan closed his eyes for a moment and in his head, time shifted and he saw her as clearly as if she were standing in front of him. Lizzy, his sweet, pretty Lizzy. And then he saw the blood.

      Maggie cleared her throat. “Arlan?”

      He opened his eyes. Blinked. The memories were like this sometimes, washing over him with the force of strong ocean waves. He was helpless against them. He could not stop them.

      Maggie was so like Lizzy and yet different. Lizzy had been so confident, so bold and strong and full of life. This young woman before him, she was barely a shadow in comparison. He would not have been surprised if he had reached for her and grasped nothing but air.

      “I’m okay,” Arlan said.

      “You thinking about someone? Someone gone. Dead?” she asked, her voice as light and innocent as a child’s. Almost ethereal.

      He wondered how she knew. Humans were generally so insensitive to feelings. Everything always had to be written, spoken, explained clearly for them to understand. And even then, they didn’t always get it.

      “You want to sit down?” Arlan asked, gesturing toward the water’s edge.

      “No. I’m not going to talk to you about this. I want to talk to Fia.”

      “And she wants to talk to you.”

      “So I guess we’ll both have to wait.”

      Clouds drifted, settling in over the peninsula, blocking most of the moonlight, and the night suddenly grew darker. They both glanced up at the dark sky.

      “Is there a way Fia can contact you?” he asked. “A phone number?”

      “I’ll call her.”

      It was obvious the meeting was over, yet Maggie continued to stand there.

      “You lonely, Arlan?”

      The question stunned him. He wasn’t sure how to respond.

      “Because I am,” she continued. “And what lonely people are best at spotting”—she took a step forward and boldly took his hand in hers—“is other lonely people.” She raised his hand and drew it across her cheek.

      Arlan literally felt his legs go weak. He’d heard a lot of come-ons in his lifetimes. There was no doubt that the ladies liked him, human and otherwise. And he liked them. But he’d sworn off HFs a long time ago. Vampires and humans just didn’t mix well in the sack. It was too risky. He had learned that lesson over a century ago. At least he thought he’d learned….

      “A beautiful woman like you,” he said, trying to lighten the tone of the conversation. “No husband? No boyfriend? Don’t you have family?”

      “I have no one,” she told him quietly and matter-of-fact. “No one to know if I live or die. It’s just me. So come back to my hotel room with me.” She tipped up her chin to look at him.

      A most amazing neck…

      Arlan was intoxicated by her nearness, by her touch, by her voice.

      He knew he shouldn’t do it and yet he leaned over and brushed his lips against hers. A tentative kiss. Just a taste.

      Her lips were soft. Sweet and begging to be kissed again. Harder.

      “Come on,” she whispered. She started to walk away, tugging his hand. “You take your car, I’ll take mine. You don’t have to stay the night.”

      She released his hand. “Just follow me.”

      And bless his mother’s sweet, tortured soul, he did.

      “Kiss me,” Maggie whispered, stopping inside the doorway of the hotel room dimly lit by lamps on either side of the bed. She pulled her sweatshirt off and tossed it on a chair. Her pale green T-shirt was tight, showing off her hardened nipples. She wore no bra. “Kiss me. Make it all go away. Just for a few minutes.”

      He slid his hand around her neck and fingered her soft nape beneath her hair. She stood in front of him, not touching him with her hands or any part of her body, but she touched him with her gaze. Connecting so deeply with him, so profoundly, that he feared she would see him for what he truly was. As lonely as he really was, as much as he needed to connect with someone, it also scared him. He closed his eyes to hide the truth and found her mouth with his.

      Maggie slid both of her palms upward over his chest, pressing against him with the same pressure she used with her mouth. Both her touch and her kiss were hungry.

      “Make it go away,” she begged as she parted her lips.

      He delved deep with his tongue, the recesses of her mouth cool. He tasted her desire, her fear, and as he drew back, breathless, he tasted the ever-so-subtle taste of weariness. Arlan understood weariness. He had been alive since the fifteenth century. Any man or woman that old understood weariness, but what had happened to this young woman, this human who appeared to be only in her late twenties, to make her such an old soul? Had the killer done this to her?

      “Can you do that? Can you make it go away?” she asked, grasping his T-shirt in handfuls.

      Arlan pushed her inside the door and kicked it closed. “Do what I can,” he whispered, drawing his mouth from her ear, across her cheekbone to her lips again. He reached behind him and turned the dead bolt. He found her mouth again.

      They stumbled to the bed, which looked like every other hotel bed in the United States. They fell on the yellow quilted bedspread. HF or not, it just felt right to him to be here. To make love to her. She felt right.

      Still mouth to mouth, she pushed his leather jacket off and threw it on the floor. He rolled her onto her back and flattened his body over hers. She was so petite, seemed so fragile, that he tried to be careful. But her kisses were fierce. Her body’s response to his touch was ferocious. The woman was an amazing enigma. She had been so soft-spoken, so unsure of herself on the beach, but here in bed, in his arms, she knew just what she wanted and how to get it from him.

      He kissed her cheek, her chin, her pale throat.

      He did not allow himself to think of the sweet blood pulsing there. Could not. This was the reason HFs were so dangerous. Even a man with his willpower had a difficult time not sampling blood when it was offered so willingly.

      He moved his mouth over the hollow of her throat, lower. Her small breasts pressed against his face. He pushed up the hem of her T-shirt and kissed his way up from the flat of her belly to a peaked nipple. He massaged her other breast with his hand. She had small breasts, but big,

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