Vampire's Companion by Jory Strong Page A

intention of making you his companion—at least not that night anyway. But once you were in his bed, he knew you were important to him, that you were the right choice for him.”
    “And what I thought didn’t matter?”
    “You would rather have died?”
    No.
    No. She wouldn’t lie to herself.
    Israel’s mouth brushed her ear. His tongue darted out to touch and trace and thrust, sending a rush of neediness to her breasts.
    “Are you going to deny you’re attracted to him? That it didn’t make you hot to walk in and find him going down on me?”
    She trembled and swallowed a moan. Refused to answer and he laughed, husky and oh so confident.
    “Pleading the fifth, Cia?”
    His hand settled on her abdomen, palm touched to bare skin.
    Her clit stiffened to became an obvious target.
    His grasped it, stroked and teased her through the clinging material of her bikini bottoms until she shivered from heat instead of chill.
    “Done questioning?” he asked, tracing where suit met skin along the inside of her thigh, wetting his fingertips with arousal.
    Yes. No.
    One thing remained unchanged. She’d awakened naked in Terach’s bed, her body well-loved.
    What if she hadn’t been as badly injured as it appeared?
    She could stretch her beliefs to include mind over matter given what she’d witnessed Skye do. She could accept that strength of will coupled with hypnotism could speed recovery.
    And the rest of it?
    Israel slipped his fingertips beneath the suit’s elastic, stroked swollen, flushed labia.
    Her buttocks clenched. Her hips canted in a silent urging for him to slip inside her. She wanted to forget everything else in the pursuit of pleasure. She wanted to ignore that this man she’d spent hours with, like any other couple at the beach, who’d touched her and stolen kisses as he taught her to surf, might fit in with the pierced and black-clad crowd at Fangs.
    We can work it out.
    “Let’s go back to Tessa’s,” she said.
    But nerves got the better of her at the car. The sight of the shotgun and personal gun were a reminder of what that night at Fangs had cost her. She should have been cleared to return to duty by now.
    “I want to stop by Chloe’s father’s house.”
    Israel sighed. He knew her well enough not to be surprised by the reversal, though the ache in his balls and throb in his dick grew with each mile in the wrong direction.
    He understood what Cia was doing—running. And he could sympathize. Before he’d known the truth about vampires, he’d been in too deep.
    Only Estelle hadn’t saved his life. She’d stolen it.
    He shifted in the seat, tugged on the jeans he’d changed into, not that it gave him any relief. The only way he’d manage that would be to unzip and take himself in hand.
    He laughed silently. One day Cia would view that show, but it took no observational skill at all to know she wouldn’t appreciate it now.
    They parked in front of the apartment they’d visited earlier. A light was on inside.
    “Looks like luck is with us,” he said.
    Cia got out.
    Heat and hunger surged through him, so intense his hips jerked upward and he vise-gripped his cock to keep from coming.
    Terach.
    The slightest mental touch gave and took information on timing and location.
    Cia leaned down to determine what was keeping him, blushed at seeing the savage grip on his cock, though her lips parted.
    “With you in a minute,” he gasped, finding amusement in the situation once he was able to peel his hand from his dick.
    She was at the door when he caught up to her.
    “What can I say? I’m a guy.”
    Her laugh was quickly stifled. So soft he might not have heard it except for the blood connection they shared.
    He smiled. Enough time in his company and he bet he could make her forget she was a cop for days at a time, not just minutes or hours.
    The door was opened by a brunette in her mid to late twenties, not the barely legal shack-up Sonya had implied.
    “Mindy?” Cia asked.
    When the woman