Misled Read online

  Her left cheek rested against the cool bulkhead, giving him access to her lovely throat and the elixir that flowed in the veins just beneath the surface. Her eyes were closed, her mouth parted. “Derek,” she said softly, her voice slurred. “You feel so good…”

  He was glad they had two days, because it would take at least that long before he had his fill.

  He tore his mouth from her throat with a curse. “I need to fuck you. Hard.”

  “Yes.”

  His jaw clenched tight, Derek abandoned his leisurely pace and fucked her like the animal he was, pounding into her tight, hot pussy with such force he shoved Sable up the bulkhead and onto the ceiling. The sensations were too much, coming on too fast—

  her full breasts pressed to his chest, her cunt milking his cock rhythmically, her breath gusting across his ear as she moaned his name in a primal chant of mindless pleasure.

  “Take me,” he growled, offering his throat to her. His eyes slid shut as her fangs pierced his skin, flooding him with heat and burning desire. He was going to come, he couldn’t hold it back. His balls drew up tight, heavy with the semen he was about to empty inside her.

  He reached out with his calling, establishing a mental connection. Normally he kept his thoughts to himself when his orgasm was upon him. He considered it a personal moment, not something he shared beyond his outward appearance of pleasure.

  Sometimes he eavesdropped on his partner’s thoughts, just to make certain he was pleasuring her as much as possible, but his release was his own.

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  But this joining was different. He was so profoundly satiated by the act of fucking Sable that he felt almost… grateful. And he hated that he was so aroused, his balls rock-hard, his swollen cock aching, that he wasn’t going to sate her in return.

  In seven centuries, he’d never finished before his partner. Never. So he decided to share his pleasure with her, hoping she would find some satisfaction simply from giving so much of it to him. He also wanted to know her, to see into her thoughts and ascertain the pureness of her motives, because suddenly he didn’t want to be just another fuck to her.

  She was writhing over him, pinned between him and the ceiling, purring like a wildcat as she fed. He gripped her thighs and spread them wide, pumping his cock deep inside her.

  The lushness of her body completely overwhelmed him. Sex wasn’t meant to be like this, making a man mindless with need and out of control. This was deadly, ensnaring.

  He’d never get free.

  Her silken pussy gripped his shaft in decadent ripples and he came, howling in rapture so intense it was painful. Derek poured the excess of sensation into her mind, showing her the dazzling blindness of his orgasm until Sable stiffened against him and burst into her own release, an orgasm so powerful, she gripped his cock like a vise, holding him inside her as if she never wanted to let him go.

  He didn’t want to let her go either.

  He had two days to convince her to give him a chance. After two years of waiting Derek didn’t hold out much hope, but he’d try his best. Thankfully his best was pretty damn good.

  Firm in his intent, he lowered them to the floor and carried Sable to his bed.

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  Chapter One

  Sable had found her prey. She could smell the fear pouring from him in misty waves, even over the odors of stale beer and cigarettes.

  He knew she was hunting him.

  Her mouth curved in smile so feral the men who watched her with lusty eyes looked away, their interest doused instantly. Stepping further into the dimly lit bar in the Deep Space 12 concourse, her hand dipped automatically to the lasersword held in the holster on her thigh. It was illegal to use weapons in the concourse, it was illegal even to carry a weapon but she had docked in the waste removal bay, affording her the opportunity to slip past security.

  Scowling, she sniffed the air to check on her fugitive, Butch Castle, but also to search for another scent—one so masculine and virile it drove her to madness. In fact she could still smell it on her skin and it was keeping her hot and horny, distracting her when she needed to be the most focused. She forced herself to concentrate, tuning out the background music in the small bar and the paging of flight information echoing in the terminal behind her. Her focus narrowed, a huntress closing in for the kill.

  Her shoulders relaxed when she confirmed she was the only vampire in the room.

  Still, Sable knew she didn’t have long before Derek caught up with her. The handcuffs she’d used to shackle him to the bed would hold, but the bedposts wouldn’t. She’d be damned if she’d let him steal another fugitive from her, even if he was the best fuck she’d had in over a century.

  She stepped further into the bar…

  “You know,” purred a deep velvety voice behind her. “A guy could take it personally when his woman fucks him senseless and then leaves without a kiss goodbye.”

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  Heat pooled instantly at the top of her spine and spiraled downward. Shocked, Sable spun around. “What the hell?”

  Derek Atkinson stood barely an inch away, his strong hands gripping his narrow hips as he eyed her with his silver stare—a stare still molten with desire for her. “I wasn’t done with you yet. I was just taking a power nap before we started again.”

  A shiver went through her body at his words. His raking glance stripped her of her clothing and left her naked to his view. He’d wanted more of her? After two days straight of mind-blowing sex? The man was an animal.

  Her nostrils flared. Standing this close to him she could finally smell his delicious scent buried under the overwhelming smell of herself. No wonder she hadn’t detected him sooner.

  His eyes danced with devilish amusement. “I thought I was in pretty good shape, but I guess not if I’m falling asleep and you still have the energy to get up and chase my fugitive.”

  That arrogant comment penetrated her astonishment. “He’s not your fugitive!”

  He cupped her cheek with a warm hand. Instantly her skin grew hot, her pussy wet, her nipples hard. Even after two days straight of Derek’s addicting carnal attentions she was still ready fuck him again. Immediately. Her fangs slid downward in anticipation.

  “Sable, sweet.” He smiled, his sensual lips curling upward to reveal pearly white fangs even longer and more deadly than her own.

  Her mouth dried instantly.

  His voice lowered and she knew he smelled her arousal. “You’re a talented hunter, baby, no doubt about that. But your operation is small and you’re often ill-equipped. If you just let me—”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Butch Castle edging toward the exit to the main concourse. Faster than the human eye could see her, she leapt over the tables 16

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  between her and her prey. She tucked the man, easily twice her body weight, under her arm and left Derek without looking back. She heard him shout after her as she crawled along the wall to the traffic-free ceiling and ran to her ship. And then she couldn’t hear anything with Butch screaming in terror as they flew through the concourse upside down, his human eyes unable to see more than a blur.

  Sable could sense Derek swiftly gaining ground and cursed under her breath. She was no match for him physically, as he’d proven on several occasions in the past, and she was weighted down with the screaming human. She saw her turn coming up but maintained her lightning speed, feinting to the left at the last possible moment. Derek blazed past them. The ruse bought her only a few seconds but it was long enough for her to enter her transport and shut the cargo bay. Just as the portal locked with a hiss of air, she felt a thud as Derek slammed into the door. He’d probably dented the damn thing.

  Sable shoved Butch Castle into the brig. “Take a shower,” she ordered. “Wash the stench of fear off you. I’m hungry, so after we take off I’ll be back to feed.” She saw his eyes widen in dismay and smiled. “Don’t worry, you’l
l enjoy it. Humans always do.”

  Moving to the deck, she sat in her captain’s chair and secured the five-point harness. Then she activated the exterior communication link. “Move away, Derek. I’m about to take off.”

  “Damn it, Sable,” he growled. “You bitch! Didn’t the last two days mean anything to you?”

  She swallowed hard. Mean anything? They’d meant everything.

  What an idiot she’d been to give in to her longing to have him. Burn this thing out, he’d said, and she’d leapt at the excuse to have him even though she’d known deep inside that it would only get worse.

  Glancing up, she saw him standing in the loading bay, one hand plunging through his thick raven hair in frustration. He was undeniably gorgeous. Tall, broad-shouldered and thickly muscled, he took up her entire view screen from the chest up. Her heart 17

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  pounded against her rib cage and her chest grew tight. “Don’t play me, Derek,” she said in a voice that betrayed her with its hoarseness.

  He glanced up sharply and bore his metallic gaze into hers through the video screen. He couldn’t see her, but his gaze still searched for answers. “It seems to me that I’m the one being played. Was I just a convenient fuck for you, baby? A couple dozen orgasms and I’ve outlived my usefulness?”

  “Go to hell,” she bit out, even as she shivered at the memory. “You were going to do the same to me, I just beat you to the punch. Now back off!”

  He backed away a few steps, affording her a clear view of the massive bulge of his cock straining his suit. His handsome face was set in harsh lines, his gaze piercing in his fury. “If you believe that, Sable, after all the time I spent inside you, you don’t know anything about me at all.”

  Sable closed her eyes for a moment, willing away the burning behind her lids that would prevent her from seeing her way out of the narrow docking bay. If only things could be different.

  “Goodbye, Derek,” she said softly as she terminated the audio. When she opened her eyes and looked at the screen he was gone.

  And with a skilled tug on the controls, so was she.

  * * * * *

  Derek sat on the deck of his ship the Viper and watched Sable’s sleek new model Starwing burst into lightspeed and disappear. The ship suited her perfectly. She liked new toys—the faster and more powerful the better—which was probably why she was so hot for him.

  His lips twisted wryly. The last forty-eight hours had been the most pleasurable of his life. Considering how old he was, that was saying something. He’d never experienced anything as powerful as being with Sable; his cock had been painfully hard almost the entire two days.

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  He waited until it was clear for him to follow, set the navigation for the jump and went to take a shower. As he stepped under the spray of water, the unmistakable scent of hard sex rose from his skin to dissipate in the steam. Derek closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool metal of the shower stall. It wasn’t hard to picture Sable as she’d been only a few hours ago, imprinting her smell on him in a way that he knew would never leave him. She was the fuck of the century, several centuries actually. He groaned a low tortured sound. It would probably take several more before he burned her out of his blood.

  Now that he’d actually had her…well, he wasn’t sated yet. Not by half.

  Derek sighed as he finished rinsing his hair and then stepped out of the shower, his mind weary and heart heavy simply because Sable was no longer with him. She’d become a complication in a way he should have seen coming.

  Entering his cabin, he paused at the sight of his rumpled four-poster. Sable had been astonished and then delighted at the sight of the bed. It was a luxury he indulged in because he spent so much of his time in pursuit. He’d tied her to that bed, draped her over the edge of it, fucked her on the floor beside it, taken her standing against the posts at the foot of it. He knew he would never look at that bed again without thinking of her.

  And wishing she were in it.

  That damned impossible woman. She was going to get herself killed. Sable was too reckless and too impatient to study the rules of the worlds she invaded in search of her prey. Derek had attempted to offer his assistance, but every time he’d brought it up, Sable had silenced him with her body until he was too exhausted to keep trying. Part of him was grateful to put off the conversation, feeling a strange desperation to enjoy what he could, while he could. Then he’d woken up this afternoon and found himself handcuffed to the bedposts, her ship no longer trailing behind his.

  Apparently, she didn’t know how powerful a Master as old as he was could become. He’d dissipated into mist and followed her easily. She’d looked so astonished 19

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  to find him behind her in the concourse bar. Astonished and instantly aroused.

  Whatever her reasons were for leaving, it wasn’t because she didn’t want him anymore.

  Derek knew she was headed back to the Gamma Sector to turn in Castle and collect her bounty. There were field headquarters in every sector, but she seemed to prefer the one in Gamma, which was his. She’d collect the updated list of fugitives, settle on the one worth the most credits and then immediately take flight again in the hopes of avoiding him when he docked for the same reason.

  She was running from him, but he wasn’t fool enough to take it personally. He hadn’t missed the regret in her voice when she’d said goodbye or the emotion in her gaze the last time they’d made love. Despite her fierceness, Sable was a tender and giving lover and she’d worshiped his body in a way that had to mean something to her.

  It sure as hell had meant something to him.

  But he knew she wouldn’t let her personal feelings get in the way of her plans. She was very good at her job. He’d have to be better if he hoped to catch a hunter of her caliber.

  So the hunt was on.

  And Sable was his prey.

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  Chapter Two

  Impatient, Sable tapped her boot in rapid staccato against the floor. Detained for almost an hour in the captain’s office of the Interstellar Council’s Special Task Force, her nerves were on edge. The Gamma Sector field office should feel like home considering the amount of time she spent there, but Captain Hoff didn’t like vamps. He didn’t trust them and he’d lobbied hard to get them removed from the Force. The field office was his bastion and because of his anti-vamp sentiments she didn’t like being there.

  Groaning with frustration, Sable looked at the framed picture on the desk for the thousandth time since she entered the room. She was sick of looking at the redheaded captain with his pretty brunette wife and two red-haired kids. She’d give him another minute or two to show up and then she was leaving, whether he liked it or not.

  Suddenly, she stilled, wondering if Derek had comm’ed ahead and arranged this delay.

  As quickly as the thought came to her, Sable wrote it off. She knew how deeply she’d pleasured him—how could she not when he filled her mind with it?—but Derek Atkinson wasn’t just known for his skills as an agent. He was also known for his prowess in bed, a singular skill he had no trouble sharing freely. She refused to believe she meant any more to him than the thousands of other women he’d screwed over the last six or seven hundred years.

  But, damn, he knew how to fuck well. Sharing his bed had been so good, she couldn’t regret it. There was something to be said for a man with several centuries’

  worth of experience in seducing women.

  Okay. Who was she kidding? There was a lot to be said.

  She’d always admired Derek’s dark good looks and amazing body, but he’d been no more than that, a gorgeous man to drool over. She hadn’t known anything more 21

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  personal about him than she could gather from gossip and a few lines of text in a thin personnel file. Now she knew him as a man, in every way possible.

  Derek was beyond amazing as a lover,
sometimes wild and animalistic, other times tender and reverent. His mind, which she knew as intimately as his body, was clever and intelligent. He had a deep sense of honor and a desire to give meaning to his endless life with the worthwhile pursuit of justice. In short, he was all the things she admired in the male half of her species.

  Sable wished she could have found something wrong with him, any little thing that would have made him less appealing. But she hadn’t and because he was everything she wanted, she’d fallen for him. Hard. When he’d looked into her eyes the last time he slid inside her, she couldn’t make it impersonal, couldn’t make it just sex. He’d built the mental connection between them and they’d made love. Just the remembrance of it made her ache for him.

  But she couldn’t have him.

  The door opened behind her and she rose. “Captain,” she greeted with relief, thankful it wasn’t Derek and grateful for the respite from her thoughts.

  Hoff’s tall, lanky form dominated the doorway. “Have a seat, Special Agent Taylor.”

  Sable sank back into the chair as the captain took his place on the opposite side of the desk. Behind him was an expansive window with a view of space beyond. “Good work bringing Castle into custody.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Were there other agents in pursuit when you caught him?”

  “Only Agent Atkinson.” Sable’s cheeks heated just from saying Derek’s name. She hoped the perceptive captain didn’t notice.

  “You seem to run into Atkinson quite a bit. Do you think he suspects you?”

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  “No way.” She knew that for certain. Derek would never have fucked her if he’d known she worked undercover for Internal Affairs. Instead he’d have looked at her with disgust and considered her a rat for hunting fellow agents. Her chest tightened painfully at the thought. Losing his respect would be too much to bear.

  “Have you discovered anything new since last I talked with you?” he asked.