Immortal Redeemed. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

      She was coming unglued. Her heart could not have beat harder. Catching her breath was a chore. She shook like a schoolgirl, fearing to move, not wanting to lose one gloriously sexy, unbelievably scary minute.

      When his mouth grazed the lace covering her breasts, McKenna shoved her fingers into his hair. Her treacherous legs opened, urged into moving by the swift rise of another far-off internal beat that was pounding her insides to a pulp.

      Hot breath on her nipples...

      The sensation of her lacy bra being removed by the guy’s strong hands...

      Followed by a flick of his tongue over one raised pink bud.

      She could not remain still. Can’t.

      This was too much. And too little.

      “What are you waiting for?” she demanded breathlessly, the question loud in the darkened room.

      “This,” he replied, dragging his mouth to the other breast, where he closed his lips over that swollen tip of her raised flesh.

      McKenna bucked beneath him. Her hands fisted in his hair.

      God...

      He stroked a hand over her jeans, over the sweet spot pulsing between her legs as he first licked, then lightly suckled her. Shudders of delight shot through her. His mouth was crazy hot.

      Did he make a sound? Could the cry have been hers?

      “Can’t wait much longer,” she whispered.

      “We might have to,” he warned as his hand stopped moving and the sound of knocking filled the room.

      McKenna heard little over the sound of her own harsh breathing, but quickly realized that those knocking sounds weren’t due to the pounding of her heart. They came from the door.

      In the most untimely interruption imaginable, someone wanted in.

      * * *

      Kellan swore beneath his breath and lifted his head. Drawing back, he sat up and looked to McKenna. “You were expecting company?”

      “No.”

      He believed her. Using his extraordinary senses, he perceived that this visitor was a man. Presumably the elusive Detective Miller.

      It was likely that the officers at the crime scene they’d visited earlier had told Miller about them. It was also a good bet that the phone call McKenna made to the police department had been forwarded.

      Maybe the idea of McKenna on a Harley was grounds enough for the detective to assume this was an emergency.

      “Mac?” the newcomer called out softly between knocks. “McKenna? Are you there?”

      “He’ll go away,” McKenna said, her body motionless on the lavender-scented sheets.

      Kellan perched on the edge of the mattress, waiting for McKenna’s next instructions and wondering what this detective meant to her. Friend? More than that? There was a new tension in the room that suggested lover. Was that title current, though, or a detail from McKenna’s past?

      When the knock came again, a jolt of anger hit Kellan. This was his time with McKenna. The importance of his agenda could not be overstated. He and the woman beside him had already opened a physical dialogue that might lead to the success of his mission. After all these years, he had also been enjoying himself.

      “He won’t like finding you here,” McKenna said. She was looking to the door.

      “Does he have a key?”

      “Yes, but he won’t use it. Not now, without my permission.”

      A liaison in the past tense, then?

      “You don’t think being seen with me tonight might be considered cause for concern?” Kellan suggested.

      “There’s always that,” she conceded.

      The knocks ceased for several seconds before the doorknob turned. Kellan stood as the sound of a key grated in the lock. Gracefully, quickly, with McKenna’s welfare in mind, he moved toward his shirt.

Chapter 6

      The man spanning the doorway looked like a cop, Kellan decided. It was all there—height, professionally short hair, wiry frame, condemning expression on a good-looking face. The scent of metal—his badge, and a gun hidden under an armpit—accompanied him. Underneath all of that, Kellan detected an almost feral nervousness.

      The detective stopped dead in his tracks, trying to see into the darkened room. Once his eyes had adjusted, his focus landed on Kellan. Soon afterward, he flipped the light switch and transferred his gaze to the unmade bed, then to McKenna, who now stood at the window.

      “Am I intruding?” he asked no one in particular. There was an explicit warning in his tone.

      “Just leaving,” Kellan replied calmly, sweeping his jacket off the floor.

      “Good.” The detective’s eyes were still on McKenna. She had donned a sweatshirt in time to avoid being caught half-naked.

      “I’ll see you out,” the detective added, facing Kellan.

      “No need. I can find my way,” Kellan said.

      “Maybe so, but I’d feel better making sure you got to the street.”

      McKenna broke in. “Truly, Derek, does he look like he needs help?”

      “Which is exactly why I’m offering it,” the detective said.

      “He brought me home,” she explained.

      “I see that.”

      Wanting to avoid more tension, Kellan shrugged into the jacket and zipped it up. After rolling his shoulders, he said to the detective, “See ya.”

      “I’ll be back,” the detective told McKenna as he followed Kellan into the hallway. “In the meantime, Mac, maybe you can turn on more lights?”

      She offered no remark in return. Her eyes followed Kellan.

      Ten steps toward the staircase, with the detective tagging along behind, Kellan stopped abruptly, alerted to a new problem. Looking up, he said to the detective, “You’re going to keep an eye on her?”

      “I usually do,” the detective replied.

      “That gun’s loaded?”

      “Are you wondering if I’ll shoot you for taking liberties with McKenna?”

      “I promise you there are far worse things than me around tonight,” Kellan announced truthfully, able to smell the vampire on the roof and sense its bottomless hunger.

      “Maybe so,” the detective said. “Yet I think I’ll deal with one thing at a time.”

      Kellan didn’t want to leave McKenna and vowed the separation wouldn’t be for long. He just had to take care of the little problem on the roof without this detective’s prying eyes, and then get rid of the detective.

      McKenna might wait for him. Then again, maybe she’d lock the door for good since she’d been afforded the chance to regret her actions and her invitation now that their night together had been interrupted.

      Still, he’d find a second opportunity.

      He had to.

      Their footsteps were quiet on the steps. Once on the street, the detective waited with a shoulder against the building’s brick entry for Kellan to reach the Harley. But Kellan couldn’t leave. The fanged bloodsucker was clinging to the side of the building above them like an oversize spider. Really nasty vamps with bad intentions did that in order to peer into windows to locate their next unsuspecting victims. This one didn’t seem to care about the two people below.

      If