Bane's Choice (Vampire Motorcycle Club #1) - Alyssa Day Page 0,52

the other two. “Maybe. But other things are much more fun. Bane, are you ready to go?”

Shock froze him in place for a moment. The doctor had just placed herself between him and perceived danger—he’d been a warrior long enough to recognize the move.

She was trying to protect him.

Her instinct was to protect him from other humans, even though she knew he was a vampire.

Heat smashed through him at the realization that this small human was trying to fucking protect him. Beauty trying to protect the beast.

She was a goddess. A warrior goddess.

“Yes,” he managed to rasp out. “Yes, let’s go now. I called Mr. C from the office. He should be here now.”

Marisela tilted her head. “When did you get here? I didn’t see your car or any of your bikes when we arrived.”

“Tommy dropped us off around six,” he said, figuring none of them would have been here that early.

Marisela nodded, but her eyes had a speculative look in them that he didn’t like. She was very smart—maybe too smart. If she discovered too much about him, he’d have to compel her to forget.

Luckily, Ryan was the only human he’d ever met with total resistance to compulsion, although it did wear off after long periods of time on some people. Those were the ones he’d had to kill. He didn’t want to have to kill Marisela.

Or Jenks.

“You should bring her on one of our rides,” Jenks offered, rocking back on the heels of his boots and grinning like a fool. As usual, the big man was completely oblivious to any undercurrents in the conversation. Subtlety was not his forte. “Has he shown you, Doc? The prez has a sweet collection of rides.”

Marisela smacked her husband lightly on the side of his head. “You know Bane doesn’t ride during the day with his eyesight.”

“Oh, yeah. Hey, Doc! You can fix his eyes, right?”

“I’m not an ophthalmologist,” Ryan said, smoothly covering up the fact that she’d had no idea he’d told them his eyes were too light-sensitive for daylight. “But I can certainly see what we can figure out.”

“We should go now,” Bane said, taking her hand in his and managing not to reveal how the electricity in that simple touch flared throughout his body.

“You come back anytime, Doc,” Marisela said. “I’ll buy you a drink, and we’ll make fun of the men in our lives.”

Ryan’s smile transformed her face—what he’d stupidly thought of as her rather ordinary, everyday human face—into a picture of such beauty that Bane had no idea how every man she’d ever met wasn’t following her around, begging for her attention.

And then, just like that, the idea of such a trail of men flashed a searing arrow of rage through him.

Wrong.

He wasn’t angry. He was jealous.

Jealous?

In a daze, he nodded to the club members as he led Ryan through the room to the doorway, still holding her hand as if he had any right to do so.

Right to do so? He’d be damned if anybody could stop him from holding her hand, or holding any other part of her luscious body, and oh, sweet fuck, he was actually jealous.

Still in shock over the fierce and conflicting emotions he was feeling—about a human he’d just met—he sent his senses out ahead of them and was relieved to feel Mr. C’s solid presence and hear the purr of the limo. He led Ryan through the inner door and then, just as he put a hand on the door to the parking lot, she stopped walking. “Wait! It’s past dawn! We can’t—won’t you burn up?”

“And again you try to protect me.” He swung around and pulled her into his arms, surprising a delightful squeaking noise from her. “Who sent you to be my temptation, Dr. Ryan St. Cloud?”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she licked her lips, which made his cock instantly harden. “I don’t—I don’t know what that means.”

“It means you’re my miracle, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with that,” he muttered, releasing her and taking a deep breath. “We should go before Jenks follows us out into the parking lot. He likes you.”

“I like him, too.” She caught her breath when the door opened, allowing the dawn sun to wash into the dark space, but when he didn’t immediately explode into flames, she relaxed her tight grip on his hand and followed him out of the club.

Wasting no time, Bane strode the three paces to the limo, which was waiting between neatly