He couldn’t tell her that his fangs had extended instantly at the prospect of feeding on one of them, or how good it had tasted to have that woman’s blood flow into his mouth. He couldn’t reveal that, if given the choice, he wouldn’t have stopped with just her. He would’ve fed from any of the others he’d been offered.

Daria couldn’t know about the part of him that didn’t care that the humans they’d fed from had an addiction to a vampire’s veil the way some had an addiction to heroin or carmin. He knew those veil addicts would do anything to get a fix, including allow themselves to be chained for the pleasure of their addictors.

A dark part of him, the Chosen animal part of him, was simply a predator that didn’t care about the state of his prey. Would Daria understand how badly he fought that side of himself? Would she understand that some days the animal side won? Alejandro didn’t think so.

“It was the theater of the whole thing,” he said finally. “The way they chained them up like that and presented them as a gift of welcome.”

Daria didn’t say anything for a heartbeat. Then finally, “Was that what bothered you, or was it the fact you wouldn’t have been able to resist them, even if you could’ve said no?”

Daria had never been tactful.

He turned away from her brutal honesty and pushed a hand through his hair. “Didn’t you feel them? Didn’t you smell them? They wanted us to taste them more than anything in their little fucked-up worlds.”

“Yes, I did, goddamn it,” she said softly.

“Maldita sea! Damn it!” He rounded on her. “Could you have resisted humans so willing?”

“Yes, I could’ve. Even with the hunger burning a hole through my stomach, I could’ve walked away.” Her voice rose. “The difference between you and me is that I wanted to walk away.” A shadow moved through her eyes.

Alejandro pounced on that flicker of doubt. “Are you so sure? You’re a Chosen now; we’re meant to feed from them. That hunger you felt today is a part of us, like an arm or a leg. It doesn’t care about the welfare of its food. Are you so sure you could’ve denied the hunger just like that?” He snapped his fingers.

“I’m not saying turning away would’ve been easy,” she fired back. “But I am saying I could’ve done it.” She paused, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “You’ve got a blood addiction, Alejandro. Admit it.”

He made a frustrated sound and turned away from her. “Daria, you’re newly Chosen and you don’t have the same genes I do. Damn it . . . it’s different.”

“Have you killed, Alejandro? Have you ever been so caught up in the throes of bloodlust that you took too much and drained your victim?”

He jerked, unable to look at her, unable to respond.

“Alejandro?” Her voice sounded shocked and disbelieving, as if she’d asked the question expecting him to say no right away.

“Once,” he answered, turning toward her, “once, I almost did. After I was newly Chosen. Lucinda brought in some addicted humans as toys, that’s how she termed it. My control wasn’t very good and I almost killed one. At the end the human woman fought me, knowing I was going too far—” He broke off, remembering her hands pushing him away. Her strength was a gnat’s compared to his. “I just ignored her.”

When Daria spoke again, her voice trembled. “I saw you today, Alejandro. I felt your bliss and the strong drive you had to feed from that donor. You have a problem.”

“I might have a problem, but I also have strong control, Daria. I might have an addiction, but I won’t hurt anyone.”

“How can you be so sure?” She shouted it.

He rounded on her. “Do you think I haven’t thought about it? Do you think I haven’t had nightmares about that human I nearly killed? I know I have an addiction, but I have it under control. I will not harm any humans when I feed.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

Someone knocked on the door, but neither of them moved to answer it. They stood, staring at each other. Daria’s eyes snapped with anger. Finally, she whirled and opened the door.

Brandon entered the room, glancing back and forth between them warily. “Well, I either interrupted a lover’s spat or some really good foreplay.” He paused thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s both.”

“Never mind that.” Daria shut the door behind him. “Did you come from the hall? Is Sante there?”

Brandon gave his head a shake. “No. Bastard’s nowhere around that I’ve seen yet.”

Daria turned and stalked toward the garden, swearing under her breath as she went. “Where the hell is he?”

“We’ve been here less than a day,” said Alejandro. “Relax.”

“I don’t think Sante rubs elbows with the peasants on a daily basis,” answered Brandon. “We may have to wait awhile to see him.”

Daria spoke toward the window, her back turned to them. “Maybe I’m just being impatient.”

“As are we all.”

“And disturbed by what just happened,” added Alejandro.

“What we just saw may have been for my benefit,” said Brandon. “That whole show. Sante might have been in there, watching me obliged to feed from those blood donors.”

Alejandro frowned. “You think he’d want to see you squirm because of your disagreement with him over Maria Gillante’s blood slaves?”

Brandon nodded. “It’s possible. I asked around. Technically they’re considered donors, not slaves. They’re employed, with official labor contracts. According to the Chosen I spoke to, the donors have residences here at the dome and a nice fat paycheck every week. All the same, they chained them up, made them look like blood slaves. Unless they get off on that kind of playacting, it could have been for me.”

She turned back toward them. “If that’s true, Sante might be there. He’d want to see your reaction.” She went for the door. “I have to go see for myself.”

Brandon put his palm on the back of the door before she could open it. “The scorching kiss you two shared after that thing they called a ceremony has everyone thinking you nipped back here for a little one-on-one. You don’t want everyone thinking he’s a minute man, do you?”

Daria glanced at him. “I really don’t care what anyone thinks.” She tried to open the door again, but Brandon kept it closed.

“Please, try to act like a good little Valerie,” Brandon said. “At least stay here for another half hour before you go back over. Bloody hell, you two put on a convincing show, let me say. You probably burned anyone within a three-foot radius. If you go back now, it will look suspicious.”

Alejandro sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at Daria. “She wants to leave because she’s pissed at me. She’s good at running away, our Daria.”

She whirled. “I want to leave because we have a job to do. Don’t make this about anything personal.”

Brandon raised an eyebrow. “Okaaaay, well, I guess I came by at the wrong time. I just wanted to let you know that I heard something.”

Both Alejandro and Daria gave him their full attention.

“I heard someone say Ari Templeton’s name in a conversation,” said Brandon.

“What do you mean? That’s all you heard?” asked Daria. “In what context? What did they say about her?”

Brandon shrugged under the liberal peppering of questions. “I didn’t hear the whole thing and I don’t know what they were talking about, but it’s something. It means she might really be here. I just thought you should know.”

“Or it could mean they were talking about The New Covenant Church and Richard Templeton. I’m sure he’s a frequent topic of conversation here,” said Alejandro. “Especially lately.”

Brandon nodded. “Sure. Or they could’ve been talking about Ari Templeton being kept here. We don’t know.”

Daria nibbled the edge of her thumb, appearing deep in thought. “Okay,” she said finally. “It’s not much, but it’s something. We’re going to stay here for a while, then head back over.”

Brandon went for the door. He winked before closing it behind him. “Maybe you guys can find something interesting to do while you’re waiting besides fight.”

Daria stared at the closed door for a moment before turning to face him. “Brandon seems to think disagreement turns us on.”

“I think anger is probably an aphrodisiac for you.”

Her eyes snapped back to life. “And human blood to you is—” She snapped her mouth closed. “We don’t need to be doing this.”

Five hundred sweaty skin-against-skin things suddenly assaulted her mind. The kiss he’d given her back in the hall hadn’t helped her sex drive much. “I think we shouldn’t be fighting. I think we should be at the hall. We’re not going to find anything out by hiding in our room. Why did you want to come over here anyway?”

“I thought you needed a moment to get your head together. I know I did. I thought we needed to regroup.”

“What was with that kiss you laid on me?”

He shrugged. “I wanted to kiss you. I want to kiss you again right now.”

She drew a careful breath. “Look, I’ve been thinking, and maybe we should just go ahead and have sex. I mean, like you said, it’s going to be hard to pretend otherwise. What we do here, it’s all in the line of duty, you know.”

Something dangerous moved through his eyes. He rolled off the bed and came toward her. “Just go ahead and have sex? In the line of duty?” he asked as he crossed the floor, his voice a threatening purr that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

I am not going to back away from him. I am not going to back away from him. I am not . . . Damn. Her gaze riveted on his chest, she backed up.

No one made Daria Moran retreat, except this man.

She didn’t stop until she hit the wall behind her. All her attention was now focused on the six-foot, three-inch aroused and angry vampire in front of her.

“Daria.” His voice was a low roll, treacherous and irresistible all at once. It stroked over her skin like a satin glove. It tingled her breasts and between her thighs. She fought a shiver.

She shifted uncomfortably. “Alejandro, come on.” Did her voice have a quaver in it? Damn.

He reached out and rubbed her cheek with his thumb. Her lips parted and she quickly closed them. “You think we should take one for the team, then?” he asked in that velvet voice and his warm, rolling accent. “That we should sleep together out of a sense of responsibility? That it’s just what we have to do for the job? Make a sacrifice?”

“Uh.”

He dropped his hand to her waist and dragged her flush up against him. An uncontrollable quiver ran through her body when he dropped his mouth to her shoulder and brushed his lips very lightly across her skin. Her head fell back and lolled to the side to give him better access.

What was it about Alejandro that made her act like a cat in heat?

He laid a kiss on her collarbone, flicking his tongue out to taste her skin. Goose bumps pebbled her body as he drew those full lips up her throat. He lifted his head enough to ask, “Well, querida? What do you think?”

Think? It was hard to do that with his thumb under her shirt at the small of her back, rubbing back and forth, back and forth. It mesmerized her libido. All she could do was imagine him stroking her nipples like that, stroking her clit. Easing his long, broad fingers into her cunt.

“Uh,” she breathed again. She couldn’t seem to form a sentence. This was a full frontal assault, and the enemy was winning.

He licked the skin behind her ear, laid a kiss there. “Because here’s the problem,” he murmured into her ear. “I want you.”

“You want me?” she murmured almost incoherently. She sounded drunk. No wonder; the man was intoxicating.

He kissed her earlobe and pressed her up against him so that his voice rumbled through her and his scent suddenly became her whole world. “I want to strip you out of these clothes, Daria, stretch you out on that bed over there. I want to kiss every inch of your body, and drag my tongue across your nipples one by one. I want to nibble each of them lightly, draw them into my mouth and suck on them like they’re candy.”

Daria was sure her face had flushed. She knew her nipples were hard at the thought of his lovely lips wrapping around them, pulling them into his hot mouth to be teased by his tongue. His words were quickly turning her bones to warm honey.

“I want to worship your body, Daria. Kiss your inner arms where I remember you’re just the slightest bit ticklish, lick your inner thigh, the backs of your knees, and kiss my very favorite spot . . . the pretty little dip at the base of your spine where your back meets your gorgeous, rounded ass.” He dipped his hand down to cup the curve of her rear.

He pressed her up against him. The rigid length of his cock pressed into her stomach and her flush faded into a flat-out fever.

“Then, when you’re good and ready, completely primed and creamy in that perfect cunt of yours, I want to slide my cock deep inside you and take you fast and hard. I want to drive into your pussy over and over until you come, until you’re screaming from the pleasure. That’s the first time.”

She licked dry lips. “The, uh, first time?”

“Mmmm, just to sate my appetite for you. The next time I’ll want to take you slow.” He gave a sexy little groan that made her knees go weak. “I like it slow, Daria, so slow and easy and deep. I want to savor every part of this pretty little body that I’m dying to have stripped and beneath me. And you know what?”

“What?” She hated that her voice sounded so damned breathless.

“For me, it isn’t about obligation. It has nothing at all to do with business or the line of duty. I want you just because I want you, because you and I go well together and we always have. Now, what do you want?”

She wanted to protest his hands on her, wanted to yell and push him back. Wanted to run away screaming. The problem was, she couldn’t move. Because what she wanted even more than all of that was Alejandro.

“You,” she whispered.

He said nothing in response. He only laid a lingering kiss to her temple. It would be the most innocent thing he did for a while.

Daria swallowed hard as his hands ran slowly up her waist and over her stomach to cup her breasts. His thumbs stroked over her nipples through the cotton of her T-shirt and bra.

She closed her eyes, groped for control, and found none. “Alejandro,” she whispered raggedly. Need slicked her sex, made a tight little ball of heat there she wanted assuaged.

“Let me touch you, Daria.”

She’d told him yesterday she wanted to try this without actually having sex, and she’d meant it. Carlos had said she had a strong will. She did. Especially since she knew that sleeping with Alejandro would be every bit as much pleasure as it would be business. That made things treacherous for her.

Alejandro was a man more dangerous than most. The last thing she needed was another heartbreak. It was far better to keep things on this mission as professional as possible, no matter how tempted she might be to take advantage of the situation.

No matter how much she wanted him.

One of his hands dropped to the front of her jeans and undid the top button. “Daria?” he purred into her ear.

“Uh-huh.”

“Let me help you out of these jeans.”

Daria froze, fighting her need to touch and be touched, and not by just anyone. She wanted to touch Alejandro and be touched by him. Her fingers curled around his shoulders and she held on, caught between knowing she should push him away and wanting nothing more than to pull him closer.

He growled at her inaction and leaned in, capturing her lower lip and dragging it through his teeth. Her breath hissed out, and her sex grew warm and wet. All her careful reasoning for wanting to push him away went poof.

He spoke softly against her lips, “Daria, if you won’t offer what I know you want to give”—he moved his hand between her thighs—“then I will convince you to let me take.”