Blood on Silk Read Online Free PDF Page A

perverse magic. . . .
    But would it really be so very bad to give in? To know this wicked thrill just once?
    His hand roved over the curve of her bottom, drawing her harder into him, and it felt so good, so amazing. . . .
    I shouldn’t feel like this. I’m not this person!
    “No,” she gasped out.
    Her fingers were gripping his shoulders so tightly that they hurt. She forced them to loosen. His lips stilled on her neck, then released her skin with one last teasing lick.
    “No?” He lifted his head, regarding her with open mockery. “You like to deny yourself. Perhaps you’re right. The pleasure is often heightened by postponement.”
    “You’re full of shit,” she said shakily. She didn’t mean to say it; the words just came out. His eyes widened, giving her at least the satisfaction of having taken him by surprise. He stared at her for several seconds, while she wondered in desperation if that was anger, incomprehension, or simple lust boiling in his dark, menacing eyes.
    None of those, it seemed.
    The “vampire” threw back his head and laughed.
    At the same time, he released her, and she backed away from him, listening to her own uneven breath rasping in her throat.
    “Oh, decidedly, we will meet again,” he promised. His eyes gleamed as he regarded her retreating person.
    “No, we bloody won’t.”
    “Have faith, my little thistle.”
    Stunned, she finally comprehended that he was letting her go. She turned, stumbling, then almost tripped over her bag before she grabbed it up and ran on shaky legs to the boulder. It was clumsy, but at least the fear lent her strength, for she took only one jump to grasp at the ground above and scrabble, climb, and haul herself through the gap into the blessed fresh air above.
    Though there was no light out here, the velvet sky was clear, shining such welcome, beautiful starlight down upon her that she wanted to weep. Instead, she staggered to her feet and cast around for her car.
    He’d said he wouldn’t follow, but it seemed she couldn’t stop running. She needed only seconds to reach the car, unlock it, and throw herself and her bag inside. A few more seconds saw the key thrust into the ignition, and then she was moving, driving hell-for-leather for the road, for Bistriƫa, and for her hotel and blessed sanity.
    But she was going too fast on the narrow, winding hill. When the figure loomed out of the darkness in front of her, she knew, even as she slammed on the brakes, that she couldn’t avoid him. In the screech of tires, she had one glimpse, appallingly close up, of Dmitriu’s dark, distinctive face, and then it vanished.
    Before the car finished its final jolt, she threw herself out into the road. She ran all around the car, looked underneath it, and even searched the ditch at the side of the road on her hands and knees. But there was no sign of Dmitriu or anyone else.
    She sat back on her heels, dragging one trembling hand through her hair. “I’m going mad,” she whispered. “I’m truly going insane.”
    And then, since she could do nothing else, she stood up, climbed back into the car, and drove on with a last look around her. But this time, heeding whatever warning her disturbed brain had been trying to give her, she took it slowly and carefully.

    She’d gotten in. That much was clear from the gaping hole in the ground, and the wild, scrambled tracks surrounding it. What else she had done wasn’t so obvious. After all, her white, drawn face as he’d glimpsed it through the car windshield might have mirrored no more than shock at almost running him over. And she lived.
    Nevertheless, cautious by nature, Dmitriu stood well back from the entrance to the crypt and reached out with all his senses.
    Vampire. There was certainly a vampire close by. He could hear the slow beating of the creature’s heart and smell the recycled blood that powered his existence, but he couldn’t identify him. He could be a strong vampire, masking his signature, or he