She was wonderfully lusty, uninhibited, brave—perhaps too brave—determined, stubborn—perhaps too stubborn—and witty. There was no one more beautiful, both an angel and a devil. No one who could calm him from a temper with only a smile. No one who could capture his notice so thoroughly, the rest of the world fading away. No one who tasted as sweet or strengthened him so completely.

She was the other half of him, the better half, and something he hadn’t known he’d been missing until now. But … how did she feel about him? Not for one moment did he presume to think sex had changed everything and now she would want him unconditionally. That wasn’t her style. Not this woman who made him work for every scrap of affection. Work he didn’t mind. Actually enjoyed, challenged in a way he’d never been before.

If anything, she would have more demands for him. More rules—for him to break, he added with a twinge of anticipation.

He wouldn’t worry about the problems just yet, he thought. He had too much to look forward to. Namely, having her again.

McKell grinned as he, too, fell asleep.

* * *

“Wake up.” Ava shook McKell’s shoulders. Big, strong, hot shoulders. Bare, lickable. She’d squeezed and kneaded those shoulders. Scratched and pounded on them. With those thoughts, an ache only he could assuage bloomed.

Her teeth ground together. No more thinking about him that way. At least while there was work to be done. Later, though …

She shook him again, harder than she’d intended.

Nothing. No reaction.

“McKell.”

Again, nothing.

He hadn’t moved when her cell had erupted, signaling a text from Mia. He hadn’t sighed as she’d scrambled from the bed, shocked that she’d slept so long. Or at all. How many years had passed since she’d snoozed more than an hour at a time? And never that deeply.

On some soul-searing level she didn’t yet understand, she must have felt safe with him here. Knowledge that thrilled her even as it scared her. The longer they were together, the more she’d come to depend on him.

Thoughts derailing. Again. Anyway. He hadn’t made a noise while she’d showered, dug through her dressers, and found something to wear. He hadn’t peeked while she’d grunted and groaned, shimmying into the clothing. She knew because she’d been staring at his beautiful face the whole time.

Okay, his penis. She’d been staring at his penis. The covers had fallen off the bed, revealing every inch of his delectable body, but that penis hadn’t even twitched. And she’d so hoped … Not gonna think about him that way. Anyway. No twitching meant no peeking.

Had she left him in a sexual coma of bliss?

Mama liked the idea. A lot. And she liked seeing him in her bed, knowing he was surrounded by her scent. That kind of made him hers, in an undeniable, almost tangible way. Like he wore a “Property of Ava” stamp. At least for now. Until they parted. Which would happen, despite the fact that she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anyone else, because they couldn’t meet each others’ needs. Not all the way. She couldn’t forget that fact; it was one of the reasons she had to stop thinking of him in such sexually explicit terms.

Sex equaled addiction when you placed it before duty and addiction equaled a need for more. Mmm, more …

Argh! “McKell.” Not knowing what else to do, she slapped him.

Finally. A reaction.

He blinked open his eyes and stretched his arms over his head, his muscles rippling. “What?” His voice was rough with sleep, utterly inviting.

How easy it would be to accept that invitation, crawl beside him, and curl into him. Damn, damn, damn. “Time to go to work.”

“After my nap.”

“Now. Mia sent a car for us. And why is Hellina here?”

“She’s ours now.”

Ours? Like a freaking kid they’d adopted? Together? Butterflies took flight in her stomach.

“Oh, and she’s a vampire. Don’t get too close to her.” Lids closing, he rolled to his belly. Wouldn’t you know it, his ass was perfect, even with claw marks.

And what did he mean, Hellina was a vampire? “McKell!”

“Nap. Then sex. Then work.”

First thought: Excellent plan. Second: Resist. “If you insist on staying in bed, I’ll stun you and cart your carcass to AIR myself.”

“Good. That’ll give me twenty-four hours of napping.”

Speaking of stunning and twenty-four hours, how had he come out of it so soon last time? He still hadn’t answered that question. “Napping? Ha! Think again, you lazy bum,” she said, hoping to shame him into rising. “There’s too much to do.”

He shaped the pillow over his head so he wouldn’t have to listen to her.

Ava pressed her tongue into the roof of her mouth, then left the room in a huff. In the kitchen, she discovered her refrigerator had been stocked, and was nearly bursting with food and drinks. Her cabinets, too. And on the counter was a bowel of butterscotch candy. Real candy, not the fake stuff she could afford.

McKell’s doing, she was sure. Forget lazy. He was diabolically genius. Rather than fill a glass with ice water to dump on him, she sucked on a candy—like sex in her mouth, man—and filled a glass with water, minus the ice.

She’d already chewed and swallowed the candy by the time she reached the bedroom, glass in hand. A girl couldn’t teach her man a lesson under those circumstances. So, before she did any dumping, she returned to the kitchen, unwrapped a second morsel, chewed, swallowed, unwrapped another, then finally skipped back to McKell, humming under her breath.

He still lay on his belly, that pillow over his head, the rest of him completely bare. Impervious to cold? She’d soon find out. She emptied the glass directly over his shoulders, and he jumped up sputtering.

No goose bumps, but definite anger. “What was that for?” he demanded. Droplets splashed onto his stomach.

She arched a brow, praying she appeared stern rather than sated from her candy—and awed by the sheer beauty of him. “Oh, good. You’re up. We can go to work now.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, his nostrils flaring with his every inhalation. Then his pupils expanded, and he grinned slowly. “You discovered the butterscotch.”

Mmm, butterscotch. Would it ruin her waistline if she had one—fifty—more?

“Nap time is over, yes,” he said with a husky edge, “but I believe the next item on my list was sex. And after all, you made me wet, so now it’s my turn to return the favor.”

A tempting proposal wrapped in such a wicked package. One thing she knew: where he was concerned, she was always wet. Not that she’d admit it. Until later. “We’re leaving in five minutes whether you’re dressed or not. The car’s been waiting for a while already.”

“The car or the driver?”

“The car. There’s no driver.”

That kept him quiet for a minute, then he shook his head. “The car won’t mind. Besides, I can love you and dress in four.”

She had to turn away from him to hide her smile—and her sudden surge of panic. Love. The word beat through her brain, both a paradise and a churning storm. “I’ll, uh, be waiting in the living room.” With that, she stomped out of the bedroom and jabbed the wall console to close the door. So she wouldn’t coax herself into returning. Or peeking.

Resisting, though, became harder and harder with every minute that passed. Didn’t help that Hellina stared at her the entire time, fangs protruding past her bottom lip, sharp, glistening. McKell really had turned her. Un-freaking-believable.

When he finally deigned to join her, he was clean and smelled divine. Like he’d slathered himself in the butterscotch bodywash. Maybe he had. Her mouth watered for another taste of him. He also wore clothing she’d never seen him don before. Clothing that hadn’t been in his bag. A real cotton T-shirt, too expensive for someone who made a pittance like her. Soft-looking black slacks that fit him perfectly, as if tailored exclusively for his magnificent body. Leather boots.

Holy Lord, he took her breath away.

“Did you rob a bank?” At the moment, they didn’t look like they belonged together. They were opposites. Her, the poor good girl. Him, the rich bad boy. To his credit, he didn’t seem to notice the difference. He eyed her as if she had never looked lovelier, as if she was already naked and he was already pumping inside her.

“A bank? No. I robbed Devyn Targon.” As he spoke, he petted Hellina behind the ears, the adoring dog licking his free hand. A domestic sight, one that had Ava’s chest clenching. “Perhaps robbed is the wrong word. He owed me.”

“And you didn’t make him buy me clothes like yours?” she demanded, hands on her hips. Had he wanted the scale to be off?

“No. That’s my job. Which I can now do.” He could have been banging his chest, so proud did he sound. “He gave me money, too.”

Wait. Backtracking. “So you’ll be buying me stuff with his money?”

“Yes.”

“But he wasn’t allowed to buy me anything?”

“Right.” Fury suddenly detonated in his expression, and he stiffened, as if ready to attack. “Do you want him to buy you something?”

Men. “No. I just don’t want to look like your poor girlfriend.” Who was using him.

The fury faded, the danger passed. “Haven’t you realized yet? No one will ever look good enough for you.” A sultry promise, seductively delivered. “How can they? You’re so far above the rest of us, we can never hope to compare.”

The clenching in her chest migrated to her lungs, building so much pressure that tears actually beaded in her eyes. Freaking tears. No one had ever complimented her like that before. She spun away from him, not wanting him to see. “We’ll, uh, discuss this later. Right now, we need to leave.”

“All right. Later. But we will discuss it.” He paused. “Hellina, stay,” he said, then strode to the door, bypassing Ava and thankfully not looking back. He pressed the correct code, and the entrance opened. “So what would you have bought yourself?”

She wiped her face and squared her shoulders, under control by the time she passed him. “A kilt for you.”

“I don’t understand,” he said as they trekked out of the building and into the car. “I thought you wanted something for yourself.”

“That’s something else for us to discuss later.” The sun had disappeared, the moon taking its place, but unlike all the other nights of their association, this one was not cool and dry. Rain pounded. Dirty rain, probably acid, and enough to sting the skin.

During the drive, he told her the True Story of Hellina Tremain-McKell, How I Became a Real Vampire, and she could only shake her head in wonder. At herself! She should have known he would experiment. He wasn’t the kind of man who took things at face value. He had to see for himself.

“So how do you feel?” she asked. “About being able to change, well, anything and anyone?”

He stared up at the roof, at the panel revealing the constant sledgehammer of rain. “Relieved, tortured, confused. Why am I able to do so, yet no one else can?”

“I don’t know. Mia mentioned something being off about your blood, but she wasn’t sure what it was.”

“Off?”

“Yeah, like it was more than vampire.”

“That’s impossible. As I told you, vampires can’t procreate with other species.”

“Just like your turning Hellina was impossible?”

He glowered at her, dark emotion pouring off him and as toxic as the rain. “My parents were vampires. There’s no … question of that.” He frowned.

That hesitation … “What is it? You can tell me, McKell.” She reached over, squeezed his hand. “You can trust me.”

He accepted the touch as if it were his right. “Vampires came to this planet a millennium ago, living in secret until recently, as you know. There weren’t many, but they came here because their planet was dying. There were hundreds of doorways to other planets, and so the people divided, some going one way, others another, and so on. Once they crossed, the doorway closed. Until …”

“Until—,” she prompted with another squeeze.

“My mother. She and my father had been wed for years with no offspring. But one day, suddenly, she disappeared. She returned a few months later, and a few months after that, she gave birth to me. For most of my childhood, I was teased, other children claiming my mother had cuckolded my father.”

That kind of explained his superiority complex. He’d needed to view himself as better than everyone else. Otherwise, he would have had to view himself as inferior, as everyone else had, and that was a weakness a warrior wouldn’t allow.

They were more alike than she’d realized.

“So, the rumors died—”

“When I began hurting those who spoke them.”

That’s my McKell. “Could your mother manipulate time? Could anyone? You might have told me, but I’m drawing a blank.”

His chest puffed up. “No. I’m the only one who has ever been able to do so.”

So, that might not be a trait of the vampires, but of another race. Could he be more than vampire? If so, how? “Your mother never spoke of another lover?”

“No. Nor did my father.”

From the corner of her eye, she caught of glimpse of the structure looming in front of them. “We’ll have to continue this, along with everything else, later.”

He nodded as the car eased to a stop at the AIR gate.