Emma wanted to stroke him, to glide her palms over the smooth muscles of those powerful shoulders, that firm chest with its light dusting of golden blond hair. He was so beautiful stretched out above her, his cock filling her so completely as he pumped in and out, her body closing eagerly around him with every thrust. She brushed a hand over her nipple—swollen with desire, aching for attention—and gasped at how very good it felt. Duncan’s gaze riveted immediately on her breasts, and Emma smiled, caressing them, squeezing them together, rolling her nipples between her fingers and pinching them hard enough that they grew flushed with blood.

He snarled, his gaze flashing up to hers and back to her breasts as he began to pump harder. Emma cried out, feeling the pressure growing between her legs, the first tremors of climax tightening her belly and sending shivers of pleasure coursing along her inner walls with every thrust of Duncan’s cock. She closed her eyes against the overwhelming flood of sensation, rubbing her hand down her abdomen and over her mound to her clit which was begging for release.

Realizing what she was doing, her eyes flashed open in guilt and she looked up to see Duncan watching her hungrily. “Do it,” he demanded. “Come for me, Emma.”

Embarrassment heated her already flushed face, but she began to fondle herself, feeling the weight of his stare with every stroke of her fingers. The lips of her sex were swollen and puffy as she rode the tight nub between them, her vagina stretched tight around the thickness of Duncan’s cock.

“Look at me, Emma.”

She looked up at him, and he began to pump even faster, his powerful arms holding her in place as he fucked her, as she began to rub her clit harder, desperate now for release. It hit without warning, going from a thrilling ripple to a full blown tidal wave of incredible sensation that roared through her, jumbling her senses until she could only scream and hope she wouldn’t explode from the raw power of it. Some part of her registered Duncan’s triumphant shout as his release flooded inside her, filling her with heat before he collapsed on top of her and scooped her into his arms.

* * *

Duncan tightened his hold on Emma and smiled against her warm, silky hair. She was curled up against him, her lips nuzzling his neck, one arm draped tightly over his chest. She was still trembling from the force of her climax, and he reached down, tugging the coverlet over her body so she didn’t cool down too quickly. Not that he worried for her health, not with all the biting she was doing. He grinned, thinking of the blood she’d taken from him. He could already sense it inside her and knew it would serve as a beacon between them. No matter where she was he would find her. It was a connection which would only get stronger the longer they were together, the more blood she took from him, and he from her.

The thought of her blood made his cock twitch, despite the fact that he’d barely recovered his breath. He hadn’t bitten her this time, though he’d wanted to. It had been an effort, but he’d already taken quite a bit from her vein earlier and he didn’t want to weaken her. Not when things were so uncertain, when their enemies could be waiting at every turn to take them down. He made a mental note to be sure there was sufficient regular food in the kitchen for her. Eventually, things would normalize, but for now, it was only him and his vampire staff, and they’d barely begun to stock the kitchen with enough blood for all of them.

Emma stirred and yawned delicately.

“You should sleep,” he murmured.

“I can still work—”

“There’s no point until after we speak with Slayton tomorrow. And you need to sleep. I’ve exhausted you.” He heard the smug flavor of his own words and wasn’t surprised when she slapped his chest lightly.

“Braggart.”

“It’s not bragging if it’s true, darlin’.”

“Oh my God,” she said in disbelief. She laughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like a giggle before she clapped a hand over her mouth to cover it.

He grinned. “Well?”

“Oh, fine,” she agreed, as if doing him a favor. “You were magnificent.”

He slapped her ass playfully. “Remember that the next time you think about flirting with Baldwin.”

“Flirting?” she sputtered. “I was not— Is that why you went all caveman on me? Because of Baldwin?”

“I did not go caveman.”

“You certainly did. I expected you to start peeing on me or something, marking me with your scent.”

“I can still do that, if you’d like,” he growled.

“Not if you value your dick,” she said dryly. “Remember who sleeps all day and who doesn’t.”

“You wouldn’t do anything to my dick. You like it too much.”

She was quiet for a thoughtful moment. “Well, that’s true. But you’re totally off-base about Baldwin. I wanted to drive the SUV the other night and he wouldn’t let me. He said you’d kill him if anything happened to me and his reflexes were faster.”

“Why’d you want to drive?”

“I like driving fast, and I especially like driving fast in big trucks with muscle engines. So when you said I’d be driving one of the SUVs tomorrow night, Baldwin thought it was funny. So did I.”

“Well,” Duncan said, realizing he may have overreacted just a tad, not that he was going to tell Emma that. “You need to realize that vampires are extremely territorial, and none more than a vampire lord, which is what I am. It’s why I rule this residence and this territory. And you belong to me, Emma.”

Emma pulled back and gave him an appraising look, her violet eyes like gleaming amethysts in the dim light. “If I belong to you,” she said, watching him closely. “Does that mean you belong to me, too?”

Duncan didn’t even blink. “Body and soul,” he said, almost daring her to accept it.

Emma smiled slowly, beginning with a curve of her lips, then lighting up her entire face. “Then I’m yours, my lord.”

* * *

Duncan pulled the covers over Emma, then leaned down to leave a gentle kiss on her cheek. She was deeply asleep, as he’d known she would be. Earlier he’d seen the circles under her eyes, the lines of weariness in her face. And it really wasn’t necessary for her to remain awake tonight. Louis and his team would continue digging through Victor’s files, but the truth was they weren’t even looking for data on the illicit parties anymore, or the men who’d killed Lacey. Everything there was had already been found. As he’d told Emma, if they were going to make any immediate progress on that front, it would have to come from Violet Slayton.

Duncan was confident of his skill when it came to manipulating a human mind. He’d learned from Raphael and there was no one alive who was better. But he couldn’t know until he met Slayton how much damage Victor had done. He knew he could at least give the young woman some peace and relieve her of the nightmares and flashes of unknown memories. But whether he could do more than that remained to be seen.

He closed the bedroom door and let himself out of the second floor office, heading downstairs to the east wing. Alaric was there, and so was Miguel. At Duncan’s request, Alaric had pulled everyone off the other projects to focus on this one. More than anything, Duncan wanted his people safe, and they wouldn’t be until the new vault was completed.

He strode down the back hallway, following the sound of construction and male laughter. Their enemies were closing in. He could feel it. It wasn’t specific. Not like a scout warning, “They’re coming over the hill at dawn.” It was more of an amorphous and vague sense of danger that filled his lungs with the first breath he drew every sunset and didn’t stop until it was choking him with its urgency.

He only hoped he would be ready when it finally broke over them all.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Whose house is this again?”

Emma swallowed her instinctive burst of irritation at Violet’s question, which she’d already asked at least three times since they’d arrived.

“A friend’s,” she said evenly. “Husband and wife, actually. They’re both FBI, so you know it’s a safe place.” It was pretty much the same answer she’d given every time, too. Fortunately, Phoebe and her husband had enough pictures and memorabilia of his days in the FBI—hanging on the walls and sitting on virtually every flat surface—that it was completely believable. Of course, it was also true that the pictures featured much younger versions of well-known FBI directors and various politicians, including one former president. But that worked for them in this case, because it had led Violet to assume they were a comfortably retired couple instead of an eternally young vampire and her mate.

“Nice house,” Violet commented. “Two government pensions,” she added, as if that explained the nice house.

Emma nodded. It was a nice house. Violet was right about that much. Emma had followed the instructions from the pleasant lady on the GPS, and pretended she didn’t see the vampires following to make sure she and Violet got here safely. Phoebe and Ted Micheletti’s place was actually an old Virginia farm, with a broken-down barn still standing in postcard perfect disrepair about a hundred yards from the house. Unfortunately, the only thing Emma could think of when she looked at that rickety old barn was rats. The thing had to be crawling with them. She only hoped it was far enough away that they didn’t travel between there and the house. She hated rats.

“They don’t mind you using their house?” Violet asked.

“They travel a lot, and they’re gone for a few days. I figured it would be better for you if we met outside the city, and this isn’t that far from your parents’ place.”

Emma had rationalized the nighttime meeting to Violet by pleading her work schedule. With the funeral and everything, she’d told her, she couldn’t take off any more time from work. And it wasn’t far from the truth, either. Sharon had been downright nasty when Emma showed up at the office this morning. Fortunately, Congressman Coffer had been in committee meetings all day, and of course Sharon, as his Chief of Staff, had been with him. That had pretty much prevented Emma from crossing paths with either one of them for the rest of the day. The explanation had touched the right note for Violet, too. She came from a decidedly working class family and understood the importance of a paycheck.