Angie Fox: Love Bites

She cleared her throat. “Bachelor number two, where would you take me?”

Kat pasted on a smile – practised and perfected over the centuries – as he droned on and on about a picnic by a beautiful lake, one without food (for obvious reasons), without beverages (any and all consumables gave him gas) and not too close to the lake (he had a water phobia ever since his near drowning in 1754). Never mind that he was immortal. Well, she wasn’t going to learn any more. Kat wasn’t going anywhere with bachelor number two.

This simply had to get better.

“Bachelor number three? Where would you take me?”

“It’s simple, Katarina.” His voice was low, rumbling. If he’d had a Highland accent, he’d lost it years ago. “I’d ease you onto the back of my Harley, and rev up the engine. After that, it’s anything goes.”

She was suddenly aware of how tightly her black leather pants hugged her legs, her thighs. Kat tried to get her mind off it by focusing on him, but then all she could think about was what he wasn’t wearing on his thighs – or anywhere else under that kilt. Did Highlanders really go commando? And was she ready to find out?

“Bachelor number three,” she began.

“Number one,” Frankie corrected her.

“No, we’re skipping that.” Kat waved him off. She needed to talk to the Scotsman again. She eyed the next question card: If we were married . . .

It would never happen. Kat flipped to the next card. She didn’t need marriage again. She just needed a life, one where she called the shots for a change. Forget the cards. Kat shoved them underneath her. “Bachelor number three–” she folded her hands in her lap in anticipation “– what would you say is your best asset?”

“My attitude,” he said simply. “I don’t give up. I don’t give in. And I know how to treat a woman.” He lowered his voice. “When you leave here tonight, with me, I’ll show you exactly what I mean.”

Like he just assumed she’d go with him. Oh, who was she kidding? She’d made her choice. Kat was going to have her own version of a Highland fling with the utterly delectable Scotsman.

She stamped down a squeal of triumph. Finally! She’d been dreaming of going on a date since she caught her maid sneaking out with a handsome young blacksmith back in the seventeenth century.

Of course there was the issue of the rest of the show. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever bitten? How many vamps can you fit in your coffin? Name the wildest place you’ve ever slept.

She hardly listened to the answers. She wanted the Highlander.

Fionnlagh MacLaomainn had the little vampire exactly where he wanted her. Sure, he couldn’t see the maverick brunette on the other side of the wall, but he felt her heat like the pounding of a battering ram. Her desire, too. She wanted him.

And why shouldn’t she?

His kind specialized in giving the vamps exactly what they craved. Too bad he wasn’t working for the eager Princess.

Finn cocked an arm over the back of his chair and shifted uncomfortably as the wooden stake he carried rubbed into his back. He never went anywhere without it. Vamps could be damned unpredictable.

Only the wealthiest undead could afford to keep an empath fairy like Finn on staff. Finn was undetectable to vamps when he wanted to be. Deadly too.

Still, he wouldn’t have signed on for this job if it had meant hurting Princess Katarina. He didn’t injure innocents. He would take her back to the King, however. She’d protest. He’d insist. After all, Vlad the Detailer had already arrived for the wedding. The vamp had a reputation for being sharp, focused and utterly obsessed with order. It would go much better for Katarina if Finn delivered her in good time.

Then he could get back to providing real security.

In his last mission, he’d staked a band of assassins. A king as old and powerful as Volholme had made his share of enemies. Still, Finn had a feeling someone new was gunning for the throne. There had been three attempts on the King’s life in the past year. They needed Vlad’s security forces, and perhaps even his cousin’s, before another attack occured. It was a dangerous juncture – too dangerous.

It wasn’t the time for the Princess to be running off.

Well, he’d tracked her, he’d found her, and now he’d bring her back. Finn ran a hand along his jaw as the host of the show asked the male contestants to stand.

In his three centuries with the royal guard, he was used to feeling the base emotions the more unstable vamps carried with them – fear, greed, hate.

Tonight, he was sensing something else entirely.

Finn stood, feet apart, as one by one, Princess Katarina met the poor saps she didn’t choose. He shifted uncomfortably as the heat in his groin built.

Gods be to Glasgow. The vixen couldn’t stop thinking about what he had going on downstairs and it was making him damned uncomfortable. Her father had claimed she was innocent, naive – untouched for at least the last several hundred years – locked in a fargalin’ castle in Romania for God’s sake. Seems it had given her plenty of time to work on her fantasies.

Think of the job.

He didn’t need her approval. Didn’t want her company. Even so, when he stepped around the wall to greet her, he couldn’t help but swell with pride at the way she eyed him. A petite thing, as most women of her era were, with an upturned nose and pouty lips to die for. But there was something else that he hadn’t seen in her file photo – a sparkle in her rich green eyes, an aliveness that he hadn’t seen in a long time. He took her in slowly and wished he was the kind of creature who could give her what she clearly wanted.

The little royal was ready to let loose with about eight centuries’ worth of sin and debauchery. Too bad for her she picked the wrong man to fool around with.

“Hello, Princess,” he said, taking her small palm in his, giving in to the urge to rub his thumb against the soft skin on the top of her hand. “You can call me Finn.”

Her eyes darted down to where he touched her then back up at him. “It’s a pleasure,” she said, her voice low and breathy.

She was more open than he’d ever seen a vamp. He couldn’t read her thoughts, just her impressions. And what she was broadcasting right now made blood rush to parts that he’d rather forget about while on international undead television.

He couldn’t help but grin. He liked a challenge. And this woman was more dangerous than a rabid vampire horde.

The announcer talked animatedly about their supposed dream date: a romantic getaway to Venice, Italy. There, they’d enjoy a cosy gondola ride for two before being whisked away to the terraced clock tower above St Mark’s Square. As the moon rose above the city, they’d get a true taste of classic Venice by dining on a pair of donors descended from the great Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini himself.

Finn tuned out the rest. It didn’t matter anyway. They wouldn’t be going to Venice. No, the Princess was coming with him.

Kat squeezed her toes against her slick, gold strappy sandals and knew she’d made the right choice. Fionnlagh MacLaomainn was even more delicious than she’d pictured him. Not to mention dangerous. He stood with his feet set apart, chest pulled back, and eyes that explored the entire quivering length of her, and then went back for seconds.

He wore a blue and green plaid kilt, a white linen shirt and had the roughened look of a man who wasn’t afraid to get out there and live life. He had a squared-off jaw, an angular nose, and – her favourite part of all – auburn hair that whispered just short of his shoulders, with bits of gold and grey threaded throughout. Finn had the grace and bearing of a vamp who knew exactly what he wanted, which was perfectly fine with her.