Free Passion Bites: Biting Love, Book 9 by Mary Hughes Page A

lowered his voice. “Think about it. Your system is new, and Logan’s best. The chances of it malfunctioning are nil.”
    “But if it didn’t malfunction, that leaves…”
    A growl came from the other male’s chest, reassuring Luke. It meant Julian was finally considering the option.
    “Yes. Sabotage.”
    “But who? No one has access to the controls except me, my lieutenants and Mr. Hinz.”
    “Mr. Hinz and Nikos have been with you from the beginning. Blackmail to get their compliance is possible, but I wouldn’t think it likely. What about Reece?”
    “No,” Julian said. “He’s a teenager so I make sure I know where he is every second of the day. He’s been nowhere near the alarm console. I’m sorry, I simply don’t see how it can be anything but a malfunction. No matter what you both say.”
    Luke left feeling frustrated. He knew Emerson was wrong and he was right, but had no proof, and frankly nothing to convince anyone but logic—and it was difficult to argue convincingly when he had a raging hard-on that pulled all the blood from his brain.
    This continued desire for Alexis was confusing. Sure, vampires were highly sexed creatures, fucking anyone at any time—until they were mated to their one-and-only. Vampires mated forever. He’d had a mate, still had a mate though he mourned her, marking time until he joined her in final death.
    He returned to his room and nearly walked out again. It smelled of Alexis, of her sweet arousal and satisfaction, and her hair, like traipsing through the fields of his youth, plucking ripe wild strawberries, biting into juicy sweet fruit…
    Before Adelaide. Before he’d learned what a miserable protector he was.
    Clasping his head in clawed hands, he slumped on the bed. That answered that, didn’t it? He couldn’t ever get truly involved with Alexis, no matter how much his dick might say otherwise, because he couldn’t protect her.

Chapter Six
    I stomped through the townhouse looking for Julian, but when a sullen teenager started following me around, I decided I was behaving less like a logical, respectable physician and more like an axe-murdering zombie, and I beat a strategic retreat. Besides, my cousin, or actually my second cousin, lived here in Julian’s household. If she caught me, I’d never hear the end of it. I left to get a good night’s sleep. I’d argue more tomorrow. After that orgasm, I’d certainly be sleeping soundly.
    Okay, okay. The real reason was, Luke’s mind-blowing orgasm made me as argumentative as a cooked noodle.
    I walked the few feet to the townhouse where we were staying… I caught my mental slip and damned Julian for planting doubt in my mind. Our townhouse. Definitely time to regroup, on more than one front. But when I got there, a light was on behind the drawn living room curtains, and I knew I wasn’t going to get the chance.
    Lizelle was up.
    With a sigh, I stopped outside. My best friend since childhood would want to know what had happened. I didn’t want to tell her.
    I was afraid it might trigger her running back to her husband for help.
    Maybe she’d had enough of his abuse, and certainly she was no longer in the pro-John-Umbras camp, but that didn’t stop him from offering her money and the trappings of security and other stuff to try to suck her back in.
    But I couldn’t not say anything because she’d see through any fake calm. After AP Psych and Communications 101, she’d considered herself a psychology major even though she never made it past her freshman year. It did give her academic validation for exploring the muck of my issues, though she loved doing that even as a kid.
    A curtain twitched aside. Lizelle’s narrow face confronted me—along with a shaking index finger. Busted.
    She let the curtain drop to fling open the front door. Slender to the point of skinny, blue-veined porcelain skin and fine red hair, Lizelle looked fragile, and sometimes she was, especially around her husband. But she could also