“Ahh, but I do, my love. I have our enemy to hunt. No doubt he is close and very anxious to finish his work and leave these mountains. He cannot afford to bide his time here.” Falcon sighed. “There are too many hunters in this area. He will want to leave as soon as possible. As long as he is alive, the children and you will never be safe.” He turned his head slightly to swirl a small caress along her inner thigh with his tongue. His hair slid over her skin so that she throbbed and burned in reaction.
“Stop trying to distract me,” she said. His arm was around her, his palm cupping her buttocks, massaging gently, insistently. It was very distracting, rendering her nearly incapable of rational thought.
“And all this time I thought you were distracting me.” His voice was melodic with amusement. Deliberately he slid his finger along her moist core. “You are incredibly hot, Sara. Did you stay in my mind while we made love? Did you feel how tightly you wrapped around me? The way your body feels to me when I’m surrounded by your heat? Your fire?” He pushed two fingers into her, a long, slow stroke. “The way your muscles clamp around me?” He let out his breath slowly. “Yes. Just like this. There is nothing else like it in this world. I love everything about your body. The way you look.” He withdrew his fingers, brought them to his mouth. “The way you taste.”
Her body rippled to life as she watched him insert his fingers into his mouth as if he were devouring her all over again. He smiled, knowing exactly what he was doing to her. Sara laughed softly, happily, the sound carefree. “If we make love again, I’m certain I’ll shatter into a million pieces. And you, crazy man, will not be in any shape to go chasing after vampires if you touch me one more time. So if you’re determined to do this, behave yourself.”
He kissed the inside of her thigh. “I thought I was behaving just fine.”
She caught a fistful of his hair. “What I think is that you need me to bag the vampire. To bring him right to you.”
He sat up, his black gaze wary all at once. “You just stay right here where I know you are perfectly safe.”
“I’m not the safe type, Falcon, I thought you knew that by now. I expect a partnership and I’m not willing to settle for less,” she said firmly.
He studied her face for a long moment, reached out to trace the shape of her breast, sending a shiver through her body at his feather-light touch. “I would not want less than a partnership, Sara,” he answered honestly. “But you do not fully comprehend what would happen if something should harm you.”
She laughed at him, her eyes suddenly sparkling like jewels. “I don’t think you fully comprehend what would happen if something should harm you.”
“I am a hunter, Sara. Please trust my judgment in this.”
“More than anything I do trust your judgment, but it is very biased at the moment, isn’t it? It makes no sense not to use the one person he would come out into the open to find. You know that if he chased me for fifteen years, he isn’t going to stop. Falcon”—she placed a hand on his chest, leaned forward to kiss his chin—”he will show himself if he thinks he has a serious chance of getting to me. If you don’t use me as bait, everyone will continue to be in danger. Our children are frightened and in the care of a total stranger. These people have been good to us; we don’t want to bring them and the surrounding villagers trouble.” She pushed a hand through her short sable hair. “I know I can bring him out into the open. I have to try. I can’t be responsible for any more deaths. Every time he follows me to a city and I read about a serial killer in the papers, I feel as if I had brought him there. Let me do this, Falcon. Don’t look so stubborn and intimidating. I know you understand why I have to do this.”