"I never thought of it. Not while I was imprisoned." Though she'd been thinking of it sincea"ever since he'd told her in the van that he wanted to bite her while making love to her.

Oliver's hands removed some of the foam from her hair, dropping it into the bathwater. Then his hands came up again, caressing her neck.

"Did you like my bite?"

A shiver ran down her spine, making her entire body tingle. "It was different from all the other bites. It was . . . gentle." And she had loved it. But she was scared to admit it openly. Because it would invite too many problems.

Oliver pulled her back, dipping the back of her head into the water to rinse her hair. When she sat up again, he drew her back against his chest, circling his arms around her torso, his cheek next to hers.

Excitement and fear collided inside her when he dipped his head to kiss her neck. She held her breath, half dreading, half hoping that he would sink his fangs into her, but he removed his lips from her skin again.

"You were beautiful when I watched you react to my virtual bite. But I was envious too. Because you experienced it first hand and I didn't." His voice was husky, and one of his hands now slid down to her belly and lower still until he reached her s.e.x. He cupped it, then extended his middle finger and drove into her.

She let out a stifled moan. "Oliver, I . . . it's too risky. We don't know what'll happen." She couldn't let him bite her, not just for her own sake, but also for his. She didn't want him to become a drug addict. She cared too much about him to let this happen. "Please, you don't know how you'll react to it."

She sensed him freeze, then withdraw his hand from her s.e.x. "Baby, did you think I was going to bite you now? I'm not."

She turned her head, surprised. "You're not? But why . . . I thought you were asking me."

Oliver shook his head and smiled. "I wanted to know if you would allow me to take a sample of your blood and have it tested."

"Tested?"

"Yes, you know that Maya is a doctor. We could give her samples of your blood from before we have s.e.x and then again from after. And then she can see if there's a difference. Maybe then we can figure out if what they said is true, and if it is, for how long your blood is safe after s.e.x."

The hopeful glint in his eyes was undeniable.

"Do you really think that Maya can do that?"

"She's a good doctor. And she's done a lot of research on what affects vampires and what doesn't. I trust her."

Slowly, she let the implications of his request sink in. "And if it's safe, what will you do then?"

His blue eyes looked mesmerizing when he gazed at her with scarcely-restrained desire. She barely felt how he sat up and turned her body so that she straddled him. Underneath her, she felt the hard ridge of his erection probe at her core. Slowly, he pulled her down onto him, impaling her on his shaft.

"That'll depend on you. It's your decision." He kissed her gently. "You already know what I want; now the question is: what do you want?"

A few days ago, her answer would have been clear cut and instantaneous, but tonight things were more complicated. She was falling in love with Oliver, and she wanted to give him everything he wanted. But did that include her blood? Was she willing to give him what her captors had stolen from her for three years? And if she dida"if there was indeed a way for him to drink her blood without being affected by the drug withina"would he be able to hold onto his control without falling into bloodl.u.s.t and sucking her dry? She'd seen him when he'd craved blood before. What would happen when he couldn't control that craving any longer?

"I don't know what I want," she murmured, tears forming in her eyes.

Oliver brushed his thumb over her cheek. "You have all the time in the world to make a decision. I'll be waiting for as long as it takes."

Then his lips were on hers, kissing her first softly, then more pa.s.sionately, while his c.o.c.k moved inside her in the same rhythm.

33.

"Here," Oliver said after he and Ursula had gotten dressed. He pulled a cell phone from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

"What's that for?"

"It's a spare I have. It's untraceable. I've programmed in my number so you can reach me, and I can contact you." He motioned to the phone on the nightstand. "I'm guessing that phone is only a house phone. I've put the ringer on vibrate. Make sure n.o.body finds it. Hide it from Vera and the others, but keep it close enough so you know when I'm trying to contact you."

"Thank you." She lifted herself on her toes and kissed him.

"One thing: I know you want to talk to your parents, but it'll have to wait." He pointed to the phone in her hands. "The phone is locked. The only number you can call is mine. I'm sorry, but I had to do it. I know you'll be tempted, and sometimes it's just better to remove temptation before it has a chance to take root."

She nodded. "I understand. Really, I do." Her eyes confirmed her words.

He drew her into an embrace, holding her to his chest for several minutes without speaking. Then he kissed her forehead. "I'll be back tomorrow night."

After leaving Ursula, Oliver checked in with Cain and went patrolling with him. Cain was one of the few colleagues whom he hadn't p.i.s.sed off yet, and Oliver took great pains not to say anything that would lead to an argument.

"Glad you joined me; it's not as boring that way," Cain said as they walked toward the entrance of another nightclub, where a couple of dozen clubbers lined up to be let inside.

"Guess it was different the other night. How bad was it?" Oliver tossed him a sideways glance then let his eyes wander over the young people outside the club to scan for anything unusual.

"It wasn't pretty, let me tell you that." He lowered his voice, so the humans around them couldn't hear him. "She looked like he'd butchered her."

Oliver spoke just as quietly. "Worse than one of our kind in bloodl.u.s.t?"

Cain shoved his hands in his pockets. "And so useless. What a waste of a life. It's terrible what drugs can do. It's evil, pure evil."

Oliver thought back to the time when he'd taken drugs as a human. "Yes, senseless." And if Samson hadn't pulled him out of it, he would have perished. Thinking about it now brought back the guilt he felt about how he'd parted with Samson. He stopped just before they reached the entrance to the nightclub.

"Listen, Cain, do you mind if I leave you for a while? I need to talk to Samson."

Cain rocked back on his heels. "Something important?"

"Something very important."

"No worries. I've still got a few more clubs to check out. Call me if you want to rejoin me later. That is, if you're done before sunrise."

Oliver checked his watch. He'd spent half the night with Ursula, and this was already the third club he and Cain were checking out. "It's late. I'll call you if I'm done in time."

It took Oliver twenty minutes to get to Samson's house. When he stood in front of the entrance door, he hesitated for a moment. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with cool night air, before he rang the door bell.

"Here goes," he mumbled to himself.

The door was opened by Samson himself. His boss stared at him, his face serious. For a long moment they simply looked at each other, neither saying a word. Then Samson broke the silence. "Come in then."

Samson stood to the side to let him enter, then shut the door behind him.

Oliver stood in the hallway, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, not knowing how to start. He hadn't exactly thought this through. He wasn't like any of his colleagues who had a way with words. He was much simpler than that. Less sophisticated.

He sucked in a breath, then raised his eyes and looked at his boss. "I'm sorry, Samson. For what I said."

Samson sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. Seconds ticked by. "It's not easy seeing you grow up and become a man with his own opinions. I guess I still see you as the kid I picked up from the street one night, to make myself feel better."

Oliver stared at him with curiosity. "What do you mean?"

A sad smile played around Samson's lips. "I was at a low point in my life, thinking of all the bad things I'd done in my past. I wanted to do good, and suddenly just running Scanguards wasn't enough anymore. I wanted to save somebody. To turn their life around. So I chose you. For my own selfish purposes. I wanted to prove to myself that I could be selfless, that I could do something for a human being without expecting anything in return."

"You chose me?"

"I did it to make myself feel better. To be proud of something."

Oliver dropped his head. "And now you're disappointed in me. I can understand that."

Samson put his hand on Oliver's shoulder, making him look up. "No. I'm not disappointed in you. It's not that. I wasn't selfless. It was selfish to think that I could make decisions for you. And when I realized that you'd started making your own decisions, I got defensive. I couldn't let go, when I knew I had to. Oliver, Quinn might be your sire, but you're like a son to me."

Oliver felt a stinging in his eyes and realized that they were welling up with tears. He pushed them back. "I've always looked up to you."

Samson pulled him into a hug. "I know that."

Oliver felt the tension in his body ease. "Are we okay?"

Samson released him and ruffled Oliver's hair. "We're okay. Now tell me why you're smelling like a spa."

Shock coursed through him, making him freeze in place for a moment. What else was Samson smelling besides the bubble bath he'd shared with Ursula? Could he still smell Ursula's scent on him?

"There's nothing wrong with a man taking a bath," Oliver said in a light tone then winked. "Just don't tell Rose that I'm borrowing her expensive gels and lotions."

Samson leaned a little closer, sniffing again. "She must have changed brands. It doesn't smell like her."

Oliver forced a chuckle, hoping his boss wouldn't realize he was lying. But there was no way he could let him know that he'd seen Ursula. "Women. As soon as you think you've got them figured out, they change things around."

Samson laughed. "Wiser words have never been spoken."

This small crisis was averted. Relief flooded him just as his cell phone buzzed. Oliver pulled it from his pocket and checked caller ID, but it only said Private Caller. At least that meant it wasn't Ursula, otherwise the number of the cell phone he'd given her would show up. Talking to her when Samson would be able to listen in on the call wouldn't be smart.

"Let me see who wants something from me," he said to Samson, then pressed the talk b.u.t.ton and answered the phone. "Yes?"

"Oliver Parker?" the male voiced asked.

He recognized it immediately. "Mr. Corbin!" Oliver motioned to Samson, indicating that he wanted him to listen in. "What a nice surprise."

"Yes, yes. Are you still interested in that address we talked about?"

"Absolutely."

"Do you have something to write?"

He noticed Samson s.n.a.t.c.h a notepad off the sideboard and pull out a pen from the drawer.

"Shoot," Oliver instructed the vampire on the other end of the line.

Corbin dictated an address in the East Bay, and Oliver watched as Samson wrote it down.

"Thank you so much."

"No problem. Just one thing: if you're going there, you should probably go soon. The email blast I received said that it was only a temporary address. Looks like they might be moving again."

"Thanks for the tip."

"Sure."

Then the line went dead. Oliver stared at Samson then pointed to the phone. "That was the vampire whose wallet Ursula stole."

"I figured." He pointed to the address on the notepad. "Let's alert HQ and get this show on the road."

34.

On the way to Scanguards' headquarters, Samson already alerted the staff by phone and started giving instructions to call everybody off patrol duty and have them come in before sunrise. n.o.body would be going home to sleep today, because the day would be spent working out a plan of how to extract the dozen incarcerated girls and destroy the vampires who ran the operation.

Oliver thrived on this part of his job. Like a well-oiled machine, all wheels in Scanguards' big machine clicked into place. Everybody knew what they had to do.

The entire building was buzzing with activity when they arrived. As he and Samson walked through the corridors, busy staff members greeted them as they pa.s.sed.

"Let's see what information the others have for us already," Samson said as he walked into the situation room, a large, windowless office with several monitors mounted on the walls. A number of computers stood on desks on one side. A large table dominated the middle of the room.

Thomas sat at one of the computers, his fingers flying over the keyboard so fast that the movement would have been a blur to the human eye. Cain was hovering behind him, staring at the monitor above Thomas's head. It showed a split screen with various angles of a street corner.

Quinn leaned against the table in the middle, listening to Amaury and Zane who stood talking with Gabriel.

"You're back," Samson greeted his second-in-command.

When Gabriel turned to return the greeting, light shone on the scar on the right side of his face, showing it more prominently than normally. His long dark brown hair was bound together in a pony tail.

"Hey Samson, Oliver. Got back a few hours ago. Just in time as it turns out. Wouldn't want to miss the action." He grinned.

"Good to see you. Where's everybody else?" Samson asked.