Excerpt :

Rylan watched as the woman he felt a burning need for blithely typed at her PCC, her long, slim fingers clacking over the inbuilt keys with barely a glance from her, so natural was the ability. He bent one leg up and rested it on the knee of his other leg in a vain attempt to hide the raging boner straining for attention in his pants.
Rylan easily and he hoped casually answered her standard questions as she set up the file for her records. Rylan spent the time it took to answer Ruthie’s questions to study and survey this woman who could wring such exaggerated responses from him.
Rylan smiled in sarcastic amusement to find his usually nonexistent patience had reared its head and he felt not even a stirring of his usual antsy impatience. Rylan also felt pride in himself for not needling Ruthie for asking her standard questions. She knew very well who the mark, Gavreel Montague, was. Ruthie had met his father any number of times over the last few years, and she knew quite clearly what his physical description was.
Even so, needing the easy chatter to help calm himself, Rylan answered her questions with a patience he almost felt deserved an award. He had no real understanding why he was suddenly so mellow, but for now he had no intention of rocking the boat. He and Ruthie always ignited sparks between them, and he had a feeling more than soon enough they would be at each other’s throats, metaphorically if not physically.
Rylan casually described his father, along with his last known coordinates and the details of his ship. But as his mouth worked, his brain was busy with other details, such as how Ruthie had looked when he had last seen her at his hotel room straight after leaving the Desperate and Dateless ball.
With her long red hair, a teasing, tempting wave halfway down her back, and her mischievous green eyes, any man with blood in his veins would find her attractive, no matter what his species or origin.
Yet she teased and tempted Rylan more than he felt was usual, and almost more than he sometimes felt capable of bearing. He had been astonished to catch a glimpse of her at the ball, her long locks freed from their usual bondage, a tiny slip of a silver dress tied in two neat bows at each shoulder. Her delicate, daring “come and fuck me” red heels exactly matched the polish on her toes and fingernails.
Even though she had been the same woman he’d lusted over for close to three years now, she had seemed wilder, freer, and different somehow while at the ball. Maybe it had been the blue vodka in her? But he doubted it.
Curious, Rylan glanced down at the nails of the fingers that clacked over the keys. He noticed her nails were clear once again.
With disappointment running through him like a heated wave of molten lava, he felt like pouting like a schoolboy.
He craved to see that wild, free young woman she had been at the ball. He had no idea why or how she had been different then, maybe she simply kept her work persona on all the time when he met her at her investigations firm. Rylan had no idea, but he recognized inside himself the fierce determination to bring that free, wild woman out of this Ruthie once again.
At the thought of how close he had been to finally satisfying his lust and curiosity with this woman, he felt a shaft of fiery desire sear through him. He clenched his hands, unwilling to show anyone how he trembled with heat and lust for this particular woman. He especially didn’t want her to know and realize just how much power she potentially held over him.
Damnation, he swore silently to himself. His twin brother had entered into heat a few days ago. Luckily for Simeon, he had met a particularly special woman, Clare, who had not only been able to satisfy the raging heat and lust within him, but also had been able to complete his Soul’s Circle.
Vampires were a species who had seemingly always existed, yet who wandered with an incomplete Soul Circle. Rarely, a vampire would be lucky enough to come across a woman, or man, whose own Soul Circle could complete the vampire’s, creating a special intimacy unknown throughout any other race Rylan had ever found.
The easiest method of finding if a woman might be compatible was to attempt telepathic mind penetration. Rude and unsociable it might be, but it was the quickest and most expedient way normally to discover such a thing.
Rylan thought back once again to how he had tried to penetrate Ruthie’s mind at the ball, and his amazement at not being able to. This was the easiest and most trusted first indication of a woman’s potential to complete a vampire’s Soul Circle.
One of the many reasons he had been so eager to lie with her that evening had been to see if they could read each other’s thoughts and fantasies, to discover if they could share each other’s mind.
To discover if this strong, temperamental woman whom he desired so very much could possibly hold the other half of his Soul within her own.
Of course, he had been trying to get into Ruthie’s pants practically since the moment they had met. A funnier, wittier woman he rarely found, and none had come to mind since he had begun their friendship.
The fact she seemingly held no interest in him, he, who had been propositioned by his first woman at fifteen, made her appeal that much greater. While he sometimes felt a seconds worth of panic that she truly wasn’t interested in him or he had no appeal to her, he knew since that night of the ball that she acted around him almost as much as he tried to suppress his own feelings around her.
“Hello?! Bladdron to Rylan, do you copy?”
Rylan smirked and turned his attention back to Ruthie. “Sorry, babe. What was that?”