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“I’ll take that for you.” With an easy manner, he reached out and took the duffel from her fast freezing fingers. She stiffened as his hand brushed hers and her bemused expression set him off on a new round of laughter.

“What’s the matter now?” he teased. “Never met a gentleman before?”

She rolled her eyes and gave him her best “what do you think”, one-sided smirk. In all her thirty-six years, she’d never met a man who held doors, pulled out chairs or offered to carry her bag. Or set her blood pulsing in her ears, and sent butterflies winging up and down her spine. And the simmering, appreciative looks he’d passed her way over dinner. Lord, it was too much.

“May I see you to your room, Carinian?”

Hell no. She just didn’t think she could continue to act right if he got anywhere near her room. But by the time she’d managed to stutter out all her arguments they were standing in front of her door.

Bix set her gym bag on the typical hotel-brown carpet, reached out and gently took her by the hand. She looked down to where his fingers stroked hers, liking the contrast between his lightly tanned skin and her darker cocoa tones.

“Carin?”

“Yes?” she answered absently, her mind focused on the slightly rough skin of the palm holding hers securely. And what happened to the formal Carinian of only a few seconds ago? The more informal he became the more her goose bumps came out to play. What was up with that?

“May I kiss you good night?”

Always the gentleman. She nodded and waited anxiously as his head descended at a leisurely pace, like one big slow-motion picture. When he finally reached her lips she was almost giddy with anticipation, wondering what his gorgeous mouth would feel like, taste like.

He pulled her close and took her lips in a sweet caress. The kiss began innocent enough, but she knew, knew he wanted more than a chaste meeting of the mouths. He wanted to deepen the kiss, to ravish her. To press her up against the wall as his blood pounded through his body.

Now how the hell did she know that?

His hands slipped from her waist up to her shoulders and held her there a moment before he broke away, his breathing harsh and unsteady.

Bix couldn’t believe the tremendous amount of effort it took to hold himself in check. He wanted nothing more than to rip her clothes off and take her right there in the hallway up against her door, and then hold her to his heart while his fingers tenderly stroked through the cottony curls at the nape of her neck. To softly kiss a path down the side of her neck, reveling in her natural scent as he made his way to her pulse point. He locked his knees to keep them from shaking as he forced his body to obey his mind. God, his fangs throbbed and hummed beneath their sheaths. The fine tendons that controlled their movement pulled taut, begging him to bare them, to sink them along with his throbbing cock deep into the sweet depths of her body.

What was it about this woman that made him want to rut like some untamed animal, then treat her with such tenderness? It was damned strange. And sexually frustrating.

He bid her good night, licked his lips and grinned at the dreamy-eyed look on her face. With a gentle kiss to her palm, he stepped away and strode down the hall. For the first time in his life, Bix wished he wasn’t well-endowed. His damned dick rubbed painfully against his zipper as Carin’s loudly projected thoughts followed him down the hallway.

You’re so sexy. Stay and make love with me.

Twice he almost stopped and gave in to her unvoiced wishes. Her next thought slammed into his brain and his back stiffened in anger as his feet ground to a halt.

What would be the harm? I’ll never see you again in my life anyway.

What? Anger welled up in his gut, sudden and fierce. A feral growl erupted from his throat as he whirled around and glared back towards her hotel room door. It closed with a quiet snap and he stood there a moment just to make sure she stayed inside, alone. The urge to scout the hotel for any other male vamp in the vicinity overwhelmed him. Not an ideal inclination for an undercover Seeker.

Bix’s mouth dropped open as he looked down at himself in alarm. His chest was puffed up, his teeth bared and his lips pulled back tightly at these sudden feelings of possessiveness. His fangs had slipped free and were visible to anyone who might happen to walk down the hall. Was he in someone else’s skin? He hadn’t bared his fangs “accidentally” in, what, a hundred years? What the hell was going on?

Walking the short distance to his own door, he dug down into his jacket pocket for the keycard to his room as he thought on Carin’s last words.

The woman thinks she’ll never see me again, eh? We’ll just see about that.