did was shake his head and she knew exactly what he was thinking about. There was no happily-ever-after for them, no long-term, no this-is-just-the-beginning.
“Don’t think about it,” Sarah told him roughly.
“You’re right.”
But the way he gathered her into his arms—as if she were precious, as if she were liable to break—told her that those were just words to placate her.
How long did they have, she wondered.
She wasn’t going to ask, however. Even if they had a year, a decade, a century, none of that felt long enough.
For passion like they had just found? Only forever would do.
Murhder didn’t want to put his clothes back on. And he really didn’t want Sarah to get dressed again, either.
Having her skin covered by anything but his mouth and hands, his very body, was a crime as far as he was concerned. Except they couldn’t pretend they had true privacy down here. Sooner or later, First Meal or not, someone was going to want to come in here for a Coke from the refrigerator or one of those Florida grapefruit in that bowl over there.
And even though it was no one’s business, he didn’t want it to look like he and Sarah had just banged. She wasn’t some floozy he didn’t care about, for godsakes.
So they pulled their shirts on, and she her sweatshirt as well. Then she used the bathroom across the way, shutting herself in, water running. When she came back out, her pants were back on and his were done up.
As her eyes sought him out, he could have sworn there was a small, secret smile on those lips he had kissed so thoroughly. Or maybe he was just telling himself that. Dearest Virgin Scribe, what a female—woman, whatever. And she’d wanted him to take her vein, too?
Closing his lids, he relived the moment her hand had drifted down the column of her throat, and lingered right over her jugular vein. He’d been desperate to taste her, take her into him, feel her essence go through his own veins, but he hadn’t fed in a while and it would have been too dangerous. He didn’t think he was hungry enough to hurt her—if there was even a chance of that, though, he was not going to risk it. Sometimes, when males were really into the sex and you added feeding on top of that? They could go over the line without meaning to, and because she was human, he couldn’t offer her his blood in return to make sure she was replenished.
“Well …” she said. Then she took a deep breath and went over to the vending machines. “Fancy anything? We have a stunning array of salted munchie-crunchies at our disposal and there is dessert. Lots of dessert. And hey, wow, it’s all free.”
She pointed to the keypad where you made your selections and glanced over her shoulder at him.
Except then she frowned and shifted her eyes up to the TV in the corner. Craning around, he went to see what she was focused on. But it was just a local nightly news report on mute.
“Do you know where the remote to that is?” she murmured.
Without waiting for an answer, she walked across the break room to see about finding it herself, and he took the opportunity to unlock the door with his mind. Not that people weren’t going to know what they’d just done. Males would scent him all over her, and damn if that wasn’t satisfying.
As a soft patter of talk grew to one that was fully audible, she crossed her arms and stood right under the flat screen. Someone in a suit and tie was talking about something political, and then there was a report on a stolen car.
“It’s not in the news.” She flipped to some other channels and then looked across at him. “What we did last night is not on the news—BioMed is a national corporation with a billion-dollar valuation. There is no way a break-in would not be all over the broadcast even here in Caldwell. Hell, it would make CNN. Do you have a phone on you? I want to see if anything was reported anywhere.”
“I don’t even have a cell phone. I’m sorry—”
The door swung open, and Xhex strode in. His first thought was she looked hassled.
“Do you have a phone?” Sarah asked the female.
Xhex blinked as if she were translating the English in her head letter by letter. “Ah, yeah, sure.”
She took the thing out of her back pocket, put in