Free Marked by the Vampire by Cynthia Eden Page A

Reached for the snap of her pants.
    Olivia realized she’d lost her shoes some place in the ocean.  She also slapped at his hands because he was not just going to yank her pants off.
    “
Olivia…”
Her name was a growl. “I can help you.”
    Another shiver rocked through her and she was pretty sure her teeth rattled.
    “Vampires don’t feel cold like humans do.” He caught her hand, brought it up to his chest. His skin was warm, so wonderfully warm beneath her hand. “I can make it better for you. Let me help you,” he said once more.
    She undid the snap of her pants. That warmth was too tempting, and she was
freezing
.  She pushed the pants down but kept on her panties and her bra. Clothing rustled near her and she heard the slap of his wet garments hitting the rocks.
    He came back to her a few seconds later. “Move back a bit. It’s flat behind you.”
    She scooted back.
    “And, love, you need to lose the sexy bra and scrap of panties.”
    Olivia pretty much hated that he could see everything in the dark.  “They stay on.”
    His hands wrapped around hers and then—then she was tumbling down on top of him. Because he was lying on the flat, rough space, and she was now sprawled all over the vamp. He wrapped his arms around her even as her legs slid between his powerful thighs. He held her tightly but…carefully…and the heat of his body slowly sank into her.
    Her mouth was against the curve of his shoulder, so close to the base of his neck. After their dive, he should have smelled of salt and the ocean, and he
did,
but, more than that, he had a rich, almost heady scent that seemed to seep into her.
    He was warm and solid, and he surrounded her in that darkness.  Silence swept over them as they were cocooned there, and slowly, so slowly, the tremors stopped sweeping over her.
    But as the tremors subsided, she didn’t scramble off him. Olivia just kept taking in that delicious warmth as some of the terror she felt finally began to ebb. “Why do people think,” she murmured and her lips brushed over his neck as she spoke, “that vampires are cold?”
    “Because the movies say we’re dead.  The dead are cold. The dead don’t have hearts that beat.”
    She could feel his heart racing.
    “They say we have no passion.”
    She could feel, um, something
else
pressing against her. She’d been aware of his heavy arousal from the moment he’d pulled her on top of him. There was really no missing it, especially since the vampire seemed to be very well endowed.
    Though she did try to shift away from him a bit then.
    He just pulled her right back against him. “But our hearts beat. We breathe. We live. We need.”
    Need.
The word seemed to echo around them.
    “There’s something that I need right now,” he continued, his voice growing deeper, rougher, in the darkness. “Something I have to take.”
    She pushed up but his hands were tight around her waist. “Shane?”
    “Vampires are fast healers, so you can’t see where they cut me, and the blood was all washed away during our swim.”
    Oh, no.
No.
    “I’m hungry,” those words were a deep, dark growl. “So fucking hungry…and I need
you.”
    In that instant, she was glad for the darkness because Olivia didn’t want to see his face—or his fangs. “Shane,
no.”
    “I need blood.” Deep, rumbling. “They took too much from me. If I’m going to protect us then
I need you.
”
    Her heart was about to fly right out of her chest.  “I’m scared.” Hushed. “I’ve never…never been bitten before.”
    “I won’t hurt you.”
    She wanted to believe that, but she didn’t.
    “There can be pleasure in the bite.”
    In her mind, she could only see the pictures from her files at Purgatory. The dead victims. “What if you can’t stop?”
    “I’ve been a vampire longer than you can imagine.”
    What?
    “I can stop.” Certainty thickened his voice even more. “I will stop.”  Then his right hand left her hip.  Those fingers slid up