Lora Leigh - Primal

“I need ice cream. And a couple Band-Aids.”

His jaw tightened. “I’m sorry everything didn’t work out, Jill.”

I laughed a little at that. It hurt. “ Not working out is a bit of an understatement.”

He nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry that in our search for a solution to your problem we were nearly torn apart by bloodthirsty vampires.”

“That’s better.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it, tracing my thumb over an old scar that ran across his knuckles. “We’re still alive, so I’d say the day was a success.”

“Your blood—”

I cringed at the memory. “If it had killed you, I’m not really sure what I would have done. I think I might have gone ballistic on Dr. Reynolds long before Lawrence got to him.” I searched his face. “Did the Nightshade do anything to you? Anything bad that you might not recover from?”

He shook his head. “I think its effects are fading.”

“Your human side was enough to counteract the poison.”

“Yeah, but—but it did something else to me. Something that really messed me up.”

“What?”

“It threw off the serum I’m on. It messed up my emotions. Made it fucking hard to think straight.”

I knew I’d seen emotion on his face before. This was the confirmation.

I grimaced. “How do you feel right now?”

“I thought it might be permanent, but I can feel it fading as we speak. I don’t think it was a cure for the permanent serum, just a glitch. Besides, the pain I felt when I was injected—not really something I want to experience again if I can help it.”

I studied his face. “So you’re back to normal?”

“Almost.” His brows drew together. “You said something earlier—about our experiment last night.”

This wasn’t a good time to talk about that. “Declan—”

“No, hear me out, Jill. You said that it wasn’t unpleasant for you to let me . . . do that.”

The memory of his mouth on me and his hands skimming my body played in my mind. “ Not unpleasant is also a vast understatement for what I felt last night.”

“Yeah, but you also said you didn’t want me to touch you or kiss you again if I wasn’t feeling something in return.”

I swallowed. “That’s right.”

“That means I better do this now while I still have a window of opportunity.”

“What?”

He took my face between his hands and kissed me. This wasn’t a one-sided kiss, one that lacked true feeling on Declan’s part. Even with the salty taste of sweat and the faint copper tang of blood, this was incredible, amazing. Passionate. Real. The feel of his mouth against mine trumped any suit-wearing, perfect Declan in any stupid dream. A shiver of pleasure coursed through me.

When he finally pulled away, my cheeks were flushed and my entire body tingled. I stared at him with surprise, and he rewarded me with a grin.

“Was that better?” he asked.

I smiled back at him. “It was . . . not bad.”

His grin widened. “It was better than not bad.”

“Practice makes perfect.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” The smile faded. “Shit, I can feel it. The effects of my serum . . . it’s coming back fast. I’m sorry, Jill.”

I shook my head. “Don’t be sorry.”

I kissed him again, quickly, and already I felt it wasn’t the same as a moment ago. I’d have to keep that one passionate, incredible kiss firmly in my memory. If it had happened once, it could damn well happen again.

Laura was right about hope. Even after everything that had happened, I was surprised how much I still had in reserve.

Declan stood up and held out his hand to help me up. “Let’s get out of here.”

I felt shaky, my body ached, and my throat was tender. I’d lost a whole lot of blood. I hadn’t found a solution to my Nightshade problem. The scientist who claimed he could help me was dead, an act of vengeance for the sins of his past. There was a nest of vampires beneath our feet that had an extermination to look forward to rather than a juicy, human jugular to snack on.

I’d nearly died, but I was still alive. I had a chance to heal and to figure out what my next step was going to be.

And surprisingly enough, I felt rather hopeful about that.

One amazing kiss from Declan had made me see that nothing was permanent—there were always loopholes . . . or glitches. If his so-called permanent serum could be brushed aside once, it could be again. And if he could be healed, then so could I.

It was far from perfect, but I was okay with that. I already knew perfection was highly overrated.

Turn the page for a preview

of Jill and Declan’s first thrilling adventure

by Michelle Rowen . . .

Nightshade

Now available in paperback from Berkley Sensation!

Life as I knew it ended at half past eleven on a Tuesday morning.

There were currently thirty minutes left.

“What’s your poison?” I asked my friend and co-worker Stacy on my way out of the office on a coffee break.

She looked up at me from a spreadsheet on her computer screen, her eyes practically crossed from crunching numbers all morning. “You’re a serious lifesaver, Jill, you know that?”

“Well aware.” I grinned at her, then shifted my purse to my other shoulder and took the five-dollar-bill she thrust at me.

“I’ll take a latte, extra foam. And one of those white chocolate chunk cookies. My stomach’s growling happily just thinking about it.”

Stacy didn’t normally go for the cookie action. “No diet today?”

“Fuck diets.”

“Can I quote you?”

She laughed. “I’ll have it printed on a T-shirt. Hey, Steve! Jill’s headed to the coffee shop. You want anything?”

I groaned inwardly. I hadn’t wanted to make a big production out of it, since I hated making change. Unlike Stacy, math was not my friend.

By the time I finally made it out of the office I had a yellow sticky note clenched in my fist scrawled with four different coffee orders.

Twenty minutes left.

The line-up at Starbucks was, as usual, ridiculous. I waited. I ordered. I waited some more. I juggled my wallet and my purse along with the bag of pastries and take-out tray of steaming caffeine and finally left the shop, passing an electronics store on my way back. It had a bunch of televisions in the window set to CNN. Some plane crash in Europe was blazing. No survivors. I shivered, despite the heat of the day, and continued walking.

Five minutes left.

I returned to my office building, which not only housed Lambert Capital, the investment and financial analysis company where I currently temped, but also a small pharmaceutical research company, a marketing firm, and a modeling agency.

“Hold the elevator,” I called out as I crossed the lobby. My heels clicked against the shiny black marble floor. Despite my request, the elevator was not held. The doors closed when I was only a couple of steps away from it, a look of bemusement on the sole occupant’s face who hadn’t done me the honor of waiting.

One minute left.

I nudged the up button with my elbow and waited, watching as the number above the doors stopped at the tenth floor, ISB Pharmaceuticals, paused for what felt like an eternity, and then slowly descended back to the lobby. The other elevator seemed eternally stuck at the fifteenth. Another bank of elevators were located around the corner, but I chose to stay where I was and try my best to be patient.

Finally, the doors slid open to reveal a man who wore a white lab coat and a security badge that bore his name: Carl Anderson. His eyes were shifty and there was a noticeable sheen of sweat on his brow. My gaze dropped to his right hand in which he tightly held a syringe—the sharp needle uncapped.