Rough Rhythm: A Made in Jersey Novella (1001 Dark Nights)(7)

“Mother.”





Chapter Three



Four years earlier



Lita stared at the stranger across the fancy, gleaming hotel table.

The stranger stared back.

Good lord, the man was…incredible. Big, commanding, sharp. Distinguished, too, with the beginnings of silver threading the hair above his ears. If she were given to embarrassment, he would have been gorgeous enough to inspire a twinge of self-consciousness, since at present, she was shoveling donuts into her gob like a shipwreck survivor who’d just been rescued from a deserted island. In a way, she had been rescued downstairs in the bar. So why did she feel like she’d been sent back out to sea…in an even more turbulent storm?

When she’d ventured into the bar tonight, she’d envisioned herself being grudgingly assisted and taken upstairs by some checked-out, soulless *, of which there were plenty in Los Angeles. This man was the furthest thing from checked out. He was so present. A buzz crawled up her skin the longer he stared. He’d barely strung a sentence together since he’d carried her into the room, splashing cold water from the bathroom sink onto her face. They’d conversed enough for him to ascertain what she’d like to eat—chocolate donuts, chocolate anything—which he’d promptly ordered from room service.

But that voice. That clipped, dictator voice had made her shake.

Especially when he’d called to her through the slightly ajar bathroom door as she’d showered, making sure consciousness hadn’t failed her again.

Lita swallowed half of a donut without chewing, brushing the crumbs off her fluffy, white hotel robe, before picking up another one. “Aren’t you going to eat one?”

“No.”

Another shiver wracked her spine. “What’s your name?”

“James.” His eyes snapped with emotions she could barely pin down before they shifted or expanded or disappeared. “And yours?”

“Lita.” She sipped her hot chocolate. “Thank you for this.”

“You’re welcome.” He laid a flat hand on the table. They both looked down at it, as if it were a third party interrupting them. “You came along at an unfortunate time, Lita.” His head gave a tight jerk, jaw clenching. “I haven’t been feeling like myself.”

“Really.” She set the donut down, her stomach executing a series of flips. Nervous ones, but not the type that made her want to run. Not the type she’d experienced before. These were hotter, fuller, curious. “How do you feel…instead?”

“I have hunger.” His dark gaze swung up, gluing her to the plush leather seat. “I don’t know if it can be fed like yours.”

What was going on here? Lita felt almost hypnotized, lured in by his rasping, cultured voice. She recognized interest and arousal in men, had it directed at her often, but this? This was utter famishment. He reminded her of a vampire who’d been in hiding from the sun, unable to hunt. And now a deer lay before him, vital and tempting, life flowing through its veins. She was the deer.

Man. How crazy were her thoughts right now? The lack of food must have gone to her head. After the trouble she’d just escaped, she shouldn’t care what went on under another man’s surface. Shouldn’t allow this odd, instantaneous attachment to take hold.

The fuller her stomach became, though, the more her thoughts cleared. The more of James she saw. His interest in her, as he watched her mouth chew, was almost as thick as the leash around his neck, keeping him in place. If the lights in the room weren’t so dim, she could probably make it out. Strain bracketed his masculine mouth and he appeared to be swallowing golf balls down the column of his powerful throat. One…after…another.

“How did you get so hungry?” James asked, his tone suggesting he was reclining back onto a bed of nails.

Lita rejected the outside ugliness from entering the room. “I could ask you the same thing.” Her legs were steady as she stood and rounded the table, compelled by some force she couldn’t deny. Maybe it was his clear attempt to restrain himself, to fight the attraction so obvious between them. She stopped beside James, but he stayed still as stone. “I’m full. What happens now?”

His eyelids drooped, fist mashing against his forehead. “Go.”

That single, tortured word caught her in the chest. God, he was holding back so much. What would happen when it roared out?

Why was she trembling with the need to find out?

There was danger lurking beneath this man’s surface. Also known as the last thing a homeless girl wanting to turn her luck around needed.

Too bad danger was the only thing that had ever made her feel alive.

Lita walked past James to the lamp and flipped off the gentle light before returning to his tense figure, sliding between his outstretched legs…and opening the robe. “Feed yourself.”

The air crackled as James stood slowly, so slowly, rising to his full height. When Lita glimpsed his changed expression, she realized that—at her invitation—a change had snapped through him like a cracking whip, despite the way he rose without hurry. The vampire’s dirt nap had officially ended and the invisible leash was no more. Power rippled over his beautiful body as it pressed close, a hand finding her hip inside the robe, squeezing, his mouth sliding against her ear.