This was the last place he needed to be.
The warning echoed in Rayne Montana's head as he stood in
the shadows outside the Iron Horseshoe—a small bar and
grill that sat on the outskirts of Skull Creek, Texas. He
was only in town for a week. The fewer locals he ran into,
the better.
Hell, the fewer people he came into contact with, the better.
At the same time, the Horseshoe was the only decent bar in
his map dot of a hometown, and pretty much the only place on
a Tuesday night that a man could find a woman.
And Rayne needed a woman in the worst possible way.
He pushed through the door, into the neon-lit interior.
Anticipation hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. Hotter
and more potent than anything he'd ever felt before, and
he'd always been a lusty man.
It was different now.
He was different.
His body vibrated. His muscles clenched. His senses
magnified, his perception heightened to a new level that had
nothing to do with fourteen years of special ops training as
part of an elite Navy SEAL unit, and everything to do with
the hunger that now lived and breathed inside him.
He was clear across the room, yet his nostrils flared with
the rich lilac scent of a woman sitting near the jukebox.
His razor-sharp vision sliced through the cigarette haze to
see a tiny spiderweb near the far corner of the tin ceiling.
Taylor Swift blared from the jukebox, but the song didn't
drown out the subtle slide of boots against the
sawdust-covered floor.
He heard everything—the
glub-glub as a man
chugged a beer near the pool table, the sizzle of burgers
popping on the grill out back, the hum of the Coors sign
that flickered on the wall, the sharp intake of breath when
the woman behind the bar turned and spotted him.
He stiffened and awareness skittered up his spine. He turned
and found the bluest eyes in the Texas Hill Country staring
back at him.
Need knifed through him. Fierce. Overwhelming. Unexpected.
Because she wasn't just one of the dozens of women he'd had
in the past few weeks as he'd tried to sate the craving deep
in his gut.
She was the one woman he'd wanted all of his life.
The one woman who hadn't wanted him.
She turned and took off for the back room, obviously
desperate to avoid him. His chest tightened and pain twisted
inside him. A crazy reaction, he knew. So what if Lucy
Rivers still hated his guts?
He wasn't here for her.
She'd been his girl way back in the day and he'd been her
man, but that had ended a long, long time ago. He hadn't
seen her in the fourteen years since. Hell, he didn't want
to see her.
Especially now.
He ignored the small voice that whispered otherwise and
forced his attention back to the sharp need pushing and
pulling inside him. Walking the few feet to an empty table,
he grabbed a chair and sank down, his back to the wall.
He scoped out the room, his gaze going to a blonde that sat
nearby. The minute his attention zeroed in on her, she felt
him. She turned. Her brown eyes collided with his. Interest
sparked in her gaze and her thoughts rolled through his head
as clearly as if they'd been his own.
Her name was Sherry and she was a local real-estate agent.
She'd just sold her first house this afternoon and she was
here celebrating. She'd left the husband and the kids at
home and she was now on her fourth margarita. She'd never
had an affair before, but the minute her gaze locked with
Rayne's she was suddenly more than willing.
She would gladly peel off her clothes. Spread her legs. Do
any and everything he wanted—
He broke the connection and shifted his attention elsewhere.
As starved as he was, he wasn't about to add bastard home
wrecker to his ever-growing list of sins. His gaze went to
the next woman.
She had red hair. Green eyes. Nice smile. Her name was
different, but her reaction was the same. She wanted him.
They all did.
He shifted his attention from one female to the next. Some
smiled. Some licked their lips. Others waved. One even
leaned over just so, giving him a spectacular view of her
bare breasts topped with rosy-red nipples.
There was no doubt. They wanted sex.
And he wanted it, too.
As fiercely as he wanted the succulent heat of their blood
in his mouth, gliding down his throat, filling his body.
A vampire.
He still had trouble wrapping his mind around the concept,
but there was no other explanation for what had happened to
him that night two weeks ago in the Afghan mountains outside
Kabul.
For what was happening to him.
Right here. Right now.
His body ached. His insides knotted and twisted. Electricity
skimmed up and down his arms, making him feel more alive
than ever before. Ironic considering he was stone-cold dead.
He had been. For those few brief moments before he'd
swallowed the blood of his attacker, he'dbeen limp. Lifeless.
No more. A few ravenous sips and he'd turned into something
dark. Dangerous.
A vampire who fed off blood and sex.
But not tonight.
Tonight was about drinking in the sweet, decadent energy of
a woman's climax. He'd figured out early on that if he did
that, he could escape the bloodlust a little longer and keep
his fangs to himself.
Hopefully.
His attention shifted to the doorway where Lucy had
disappeared. The urge to go after her hit him hard and fast
even though he'd learned his lesson long ago where she was
concerned. He'd trusted her and she'd broken his heart.
She'd dumped him without a word of explanation. Just a quick
"It's over" that had cut like a dull blade straight
into his heart. And damned if he'd ever understood why.
Sure, he'd wanted to ask.
To plead and beg even.
But where some kids had been raised with nice clothes and
good food and a loving family, Rayne had grown up the son of
an alcoholic father and a neglectful mother. He'd had
nothing but his pride. And so he'd kept his distance until
he'd left for West Point.
He hadn't looked back since.
But things had changed in the past few weeks.
He'd changed, and the only person likely to do any begging,
should they come face-to-face, would be little Miss Lucy.
For his kiss.
His touch.
His cock.
His body stirred and he grew harder. Hungrier. In spite of
it all, she had given him some of the best sex of his life.
She'd been as wild as he'd been, and just as uninhibited.
Together they'd been explosive.
A perfect match.
Or so he'd thought.
Memories stirred and images rolled through his head. He saw
Lucy's smiling face. Felt her small hand in his. Heard the
sweet sound of her laughter.
His chest tightened and bitterness welled inside him, along
with something else. A deep-seated curiosity. She might have
faked being happy with him, but had she faked the chemistry,
too?
Maybe.
Probably.
Get over it, buddy.
Solid advice, he knew. But while she'd made it more than
clear at the end that she felt zilch for him emotionally, he
couldn't help but wonder if she would still react to him
physically.
If she would squirm when he bit her nipple and dig her nails
into his shoulders when he licked her clit and gasp when he
plunged hilt deep inside her.
There was only one way to find out.
He pushed to his feet and went after her.
He was here.
The truth snapped at Lucy's heels and followed her through
the rear exit and out into the gravel parking lot behind the
bar. Panic punched her in the chest as she leaned back
against the building. Her palms flattened against the cool
tin and she tried to calm her pounding heart.
What the hell was wrong with her?
She was Lucy Rivers. She didn't run from men. Hell, she
liked men. Maybe not as often as some might think, but
enough to feed the bad-girl reputation she'd inherited from
her late mother and older sister.
Then again, this wasn't just any man.
This was
the man. The one who'd made her tummy
quiver and her knees quake.
Fourteen years ago, she reminded herself. No way should he
have the same effect now.
Her traitorous hands trembled and she stiffened.
Okay, so her body was definitely in overdrive, but not
because she was still hooked on him. It was simply the shock
of seeing him out of the blue that had her heart pounding so
fiercely.
He'd been so busy all these years with the
military—first West Point, then special ops training,
then mission after mission. He'd been too busy to come home
to Texas. Not that he would have wanted to. His father had
been a bastard and his mother hadn't been much better. It
was no wonder Rayne hadn't bothered to show up when the old
man had passed away three years ago from a heart attack.
Shortly after that, Rayne's mother had abandoned the
run-down farm, packed up and moved to Arizona with some guy
she'd picked up at a truck stop. With his only family gone,
he'd had no ties to Skull Creek and so Lucy had given up on
ever having to face him.
Shock.
That was what had her pulse racing and her hands shaking and
her nipples throbbing.
"That, or maybe you're just glad to see me."
His deep, sultry voice came from out of nowhere, whispering
through her head, sending her hormones into a tizzy. Lucy
knew then that she could no longer avoid a confrontation.
The time had come.
Rayne Montana was finally here.
And he was standing right behind her.
Lucy tried to calm her frantic heart as she turned to face
him, but it was useless. Seeing him up close was even more
of a jolt than when he'd walked in the bar.
He was taller than she remembered. His dark hair much
shorter, cropped close to his head in typical military
fashion. A plain white cotton T-shirt outlined his broad
shoulders and heavily muscled arms. A pair of silver dog
tags hung around his neck. A black slave band tattoo
encircled one thick bicep and peeked from beneath the edge
of his sleeve. He wore faded jeans and dusty cowboy boots
and an air of danger that made her pulse race.
A day's growth of stubble shadowed his jaw and outlined his
sensuous mouth. Aqua-blue eyes, as deep as the Caribbean and
just as intoxicating, stared back at her and her stomach
hollowed out. He looked so decadently sexy that she could
have eaten him up with a spoon.
A light flickered in his brilliant gaze and if she hadn't
known better, she would have sworn she'd somehow surprised him.
Ridiculous, considering he was the one who'd snuck up on
her. Speaking of which, her gaze swiveled to the door. She
hadn't heard it open or close. No squeak of hinges. No
footsteps kicking up gravel.
She cut him a look. "How did you do that?"
His seductive mouth tilted into a grin and her heart jumped.
"I'm special forces, sugar. I move quietly. I have to."
It made sense. At the same time, something didn't seem quite
right. He didn't seem quite right.
His eyes glittered a little too brightly and he stared at
her a little too intently.
She turned, putting her back to him as she walked a few feet
away and started stacking several empty liquor boxes piled
near the Dumpster. If she kept her hands busy then maybe,
just maybe she wouldn't want to reach out and touch him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Is that any way to greet an old boyfriend?"
"You weren't my boyfriend. You never even asked me on an
official date."
"I seem to recall a lot of dates."
"Those were booty calls." She finished stacking the
boxes and tossed them into the open Dumpster. "There's a
difference."
They'd run with different crowds. While Rayne had been as
poor as she'd been, he'd made up for it with a killer arm
that had taken the Skull Creek Panthers to the state
football championship two years in a row. Despite the fact
that he'd lived on the wrong side of the tracks in a rundown
farm off Route 62, he'd been one of the in-crowd.
Meanwhile she'd been one of those River girls. Poor. White
trash. One of three illegitimate daughters of the town
whore. A whore herself. Hence her nickname—Juicy Lucy.
While she'd always known who he was—they'd ridden the
same school bus growing up and sat in the same class, they
hadn't actually met until his senior year of high school.
She'd been a sophomore back then, sweet sixteen, and he'd
been just two months shy of graduation. It had been a Friday
night. Football season had long since passed, but the team
had been smack-dab in the middle of spring training and so
Rayne had been stuck at the school until well after dark.
His fix-'er-up Chevy pickup had run out of gas on the way
home from practice. She'd happened by in her mom's old
Bonneville and offered to give him a lift to the nearest gas
station. When they'd pulled up at the Fill-R-Up, he'd told
her thank you.
And then he'd kissed her.
It had been the craziest moment. One second he'd been
looking at her and the next, she'd been in his arms, feeling
as if she'd always belonged there. No boy—and she'd
had plenty—had ever kissed her the way Rayne had.
As if he'd meant it.
They'd spent every Friday night together from then on. She
would meet him down by the river after practice. Or out at
his barn. Or back at her house.
Her oldest sister, Robin, had said he was using her for sex,
but Lucy had known better. She'd seen the sincerity in his
gaze. The genuine liking. She'd felt it whenever he'd
touched her. And even more when he hadn't.
No matter what Robin believed, Lucy and Rayne hadn't spent
all their time making out. They'd talked, too. About the
past. The present. The future.
He'd had so many plans and she'd had so few, and so she'd
done the right thing when the time had come. The day after
he'd received his acceptance letter from West Point, she'd
broken up with him.
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