“Let’s do this,” he said, and pushed open the unlocked door.
Chapter Eleven
JERRY MORENO walked out first, since he was the person everyone expected to see. Lana couldn’t help noticing the confidence that cloaked him like a second skin ever since Vincent had fed him. This wasn’t the vampire who’d been cowering in the corner less than an hour ago. Standing in the shadowed doorway, Lana kept waiting for the guard to notice the difference in his prisoner, to comment on it, but he never did. Or maybe he was so accustomed to Jerry showing up at sunset that he didn’t even look.
He did notice when Vincent emerged behind Moreno, however. How could he not? Vincent was a presence, at least three inches over six feet and powerfully built. But there was much more to him than just his physical size. There was so much energy crackling around him that Lana expected the bushes to rattle and small objects to move out of his path when he walked. And there was something weird going on with his eyes, too. She’d noticed the copper flecks before, noticed that the light caught them sometimes and they seemed to glow. She’d dismissed it as a simple trick of light, but now she realized it was more than that. With his eyes glowing copper-penny bright, Vincent aimed his smile at the guard and, just like that, it was all over. The guard’s mouth went slack, his eyes glazed over, and he stared up at Vincent as if he was the messiah come back to earth.
“¿Cómo te llamas?” Vincent asked the guard. Lana understood that easily enough, but she had to concentrate to decipher the rest of their conversation, which was spoken in rapid Spanish.
“José, jefe. Me llamo José.”
“Is the big gate the only way out of here, José?”
“No, no, jefe, there is a small gate that the gardeners use sometimes, and another that no one is supposed to know about. It is secret and for Señor Camarillo’s use only. For when he—” José stopped and looked away as if embarrassed by what he had to say.
“He what, José?” Vincent all but purred.
“Mi patron is a man, jefe.”
“Ah,” Vincent said, sharing a manly chuckle which only made Lana scowl, because she had a pretty good idea what they were talking about, even while understanding that Vincent was playing the guard for information.
“And is Señor Camarillo entertaining this evening? Or should I say being entertained?” Vincent’s chuckle became a full, deep laugh which was now shared by all three males. Nice. Camarillo was married with children, but he fucked other women on the side. So many that he had a secret door for them to come and go from the compound. What an ass.
“No, no,” José assured him. “This morning was Señor Camarillo’s saint’s day.”
“But he will still sleep in his private room, won’t he?” Vincent asked confidently.
“Oh, si, jefe. Always. Mi patron has enemies and he would not endanger his family.”
“Of course not.”
Lana wondered if Vincent was actually buying the endanger his family defense. She rolled her eyes in disgust and didn’t know why Vincent was wasting time with this useless line of inquiry. She didn’t care where Camarillo slept. She just wanted to get over the wall and out of town before he realized his pet vampire was gone.
“Do you know where the señor is now, José?”
“Si. He sleeps still from siesta, but he will wake soon for the night.”
“Excellent. Take me there.”
Lana gave Vincent a sharp look. What the fuck?
“Vincent—” she started to protest, but suddenly, he was right there in front of her, looming over her with his much greater height and strength, copper-penny eyes burning bright and pinning her beneath his angry glare. But if he’d thought to intimidate her, he was out of luck. She’d been around big men all her life. She wasn’t afraid of them.
She gave him a defiant glare. “We don’t have time for this. We need to get gone. You agreed.”
“That was before I discovered the asshole was sleeping right around the fucking corner. And there is always time for this,” he snarled. “No one, and I mean . . . No. One. Gets to slice into my neck, throw me into a hot box filled with dirt, and think to bend me to his will. No one, Lana. Lessons must be taught. If you’re concerned, you can leave and I’ll—”
“Fuck you,” she said, going up on her toes to get right in his face. “I didn’t break into this place and spend the entire day in a hot box filled with dirt just so I could leave you behind.”
Vincent’s snarl turned into a grin as his arm looped around her waist, holding her in her tiptoe position, smashing her body flush against his. A rash of conflicting sensations chased themselves over her skin and jangled her nerves as her body remembered what it had been like to be crushed under the heavy weight of him, to feel the hard length of his arousal pressing into her thigh. Half of her wanted to stand up and cheer at the feel of Vincent’s hard strength holding her in place, while the other half was screaming a warning for her to get away fast.
“This won’t take long, querida,” he murmured. “You and Jerry can—”
“No,” she reiterated forcefully. “Where you go, I go. So, let’s get this over with.”
Before she could stop him, he kissed her fast and hard, then released her, making sure she was steady on her feet before he removed his arm and faced the guard again.
“Let’s go, José.”