Her mouth dried as she saw his abdomen-the solid planes of muscle, more soft golden hair, the enticing indent of his navel. Her gaze dropped to his small clothes, riding on his lean hips...

It was as though she had stepped into one of her scandalous dreams.

"Do you know what happens to housebreakers, Miss Lark? Sometimes they get transported." His voice was silky. "And, like me, sometimes they serve a sentence in prison-and learn about all the perversions of mankind." His eyes narrowed, hard and cold in the soft light. "You should be thankful that I found you. I don't know what Sommersby would have done if he had."

Serena knew she couldn't show fear. "And what will you do?" she asked.

He reached down and picked up the journal she'd been reading. She caught her breath- waiting to see his reaction. He threw it back to the table and grinned. Astonished, she felt her jaw drop. How could he smile at such monstrous thoughts?

"Meaningless scribble to me," he said.

"You-you mean you can't read?"

"I was born in a wh.o.r.ehouse, love, where women serviced rough men for pennies."

"But Lord Sommersby-the previous Lord Sommersby did not teach you? I thought he had taken you in as an apprentice."

He shrugged. "From your look of shock, I take it that to a governess a lack of education is sinful indeed." Mr. Swift's deep voice lingered on sinful and her quim dampened in response.

"I could teach you to read," she offered. Perhaps it was a way to convince Mr. Swift not to have her arrested, to convince him to help her, but mostly she wanted to help him.

He had desired her in that brothel. He desired her now. She could read the heat, the male promise, in his beautiful green eyes, and it set her heart racing even faster.

"Why would you want to do that, love?" He paced to the table and leaned on it. Beneath his shirtsleeves, his muscles bunched, and she licked her lip nervously. Mr. Swift looked utterly unconcerned about being half-naked. But why should it startle her so? Vampires were often naked.

"You don't know much about me, do you?" he asked, his voice husky, with a gentleness that wrapped around her heart.

"No, Mr. Swift," she answered with equal softness. "I do not." She read vulnerability, poignancy in his emerald eyes.

"I would like to know about you, Miss Lark. You fascinate me. Why does your past matter so much to you? You can't bring your parents back, sweetheart."

"I know." She blinked away tears-tears at having to lie. "But my past has made me who I am-and I don't know anything about it."

"What do you really want, Miss Lark? Vengeance on the vampire who took your parents? Perhaps that vampire is already dead. Is that the most satisfying thing you can imagine, Miss Lark?"

"I-I don't know."

Mr. Swift walked away from her, to the shadows, and he picked a jar up off one of the shelves. "A vampire's brain." He lifted it. "What was it like to be a governess? Better or worse than slaying vampires?"

"I liked to teach." How weak that sounded. She had wanted to do so much more than that. Suddenly Serena wanted this man to know what she had tried to do. Why, when she had been tossed out of the Thornton household, she had left with the knowledge that the children had profited from their time together and that she had, in some small way, influenced their futures. Improved them. She wanted him to know that she was...human.

"I encouraged my charges to strive. To reach for a goal and grasp it. I believe every person should have value in the world."

"So Lord Sommersby meets your approval, since his goal is to destroy vampires?" Drake Swift placed his jar back with a decided thump that rattled the other jars on the shelf. Even the candlelight seemed to scurry away from him. His brows lowered, and his eyes lit with a fire that forced her to try to take a step back. The table's edge gouged her bottom.

The candle flame straightened, and the glow touched the streaks of blond in his hair, igniting the sharp line of his cheekbone, caressing the full curve of his lower lip. A mocking smile touched his mouth.

The smile irritated her-not because he was laughing at her but because he insisted on laughing at himself. "You meet my approval," Serena pointed out. She took a determined step forward and planted her palms on the worn surface of the table in front of her.

The brains still bobbed and spiraled in their fluid prisons, like lily pads on a rippling pond. This was absurd. This room. This conversation. This heat she felt.

"La.s.s, I've never achieved anything in my life." Swift shifted with grace to perch on the corner of the table, his muscular legs splayed. His bare feet still touched the floor, and he leaned toward her.

She stared at his long, seductive, naked feet. "Your feet must be cold."

"I'm used to being barefoot, sweetheart. I grew up that way."

To respect propriety she should scuttle back, but Serena refused to retreat. "You have saved countless lives. You have faced death with courage to save lives."

"But not for n.o.ble motives, sweet lark."

"Then why?" Serena asked, her voice cool and patient, and she knew at once that he resented the measured way she spoke to him.

Swift leaned closer. He'd just bathed. She'd never smelled a man right from his bath. So deliciously clean, yet underneath there was still the compelling raw scent of him.

"You asked me why the late Lord Sommersby never taught me to read. Do you really want the answer?"

"Of course."

"Why?"

"Because I find it criminal that he did not." But the truth sang through her thoughts. Because I want to know more about you. I have since you touched me so intimately at the brothel. Since you kissed my neck. Since I had those shocking dreams! Even though I know that it is a mistake, I can't resist. I need to know.

"I'm a killer, love. A killer doesn't need to know how to read. It's better to keep a killer ignorant."

"You are not a killer!"

"I am a killer. Soldiers are killers. Magistrates that sentence men to hang are killers."

"That is too simplistic."

"I killed before I came here, sweet. I'll kill after I leave."

"I am accustomed to the machinations of boys who want attention, Mr. Swift."

He laughed at that, head back. His sinfully beautiful baritone flooded the stale little laboratory.

Drake Swift laughed all the time-how could a man who so enjoyed life, even the danger in it, be so angry? "You are a clever young woman," he said. "I do want your attention. And I want to give you mine." The double entendre made her gasp. It made her look down, to his linens, pulled tight across a long, thick bulge that snaked up from his crotch and cranked to the right.

"I'm rock hard, my dear. For you." His voice was soft, his eyes magnetic and compelling.

She'd been told such things by William Bridgewater. Were all men so unimaginative in the way they seduced women? But she couldn't deny she felt hot and molten inside at the thought of arousing Drake Swift, and she knew she was a fool. "You would be for any woman."

"Not like this, Miss Lark. I've never burned so fiercely before."

"That's not true, of course."

"I'm not lying to you, little lark." He reached out for her hand, gently held her fingers, and the caress made her burn inside. "I want you to understand what I am, Serena Lark. I am here because his lordship believed I would kill without question or compa.s.sion. His lordship believed that I, like an animal, didn't have a soul."

"Preposterous. Of course you do." Pain and anger made her snap the words. How could the late earl have treated this wounded man so harshly? Drake Swift couldn't even see himself as a hero.

"But I don't, little lark." Swift slid off the table's edge and dropped to his knees in front of her.

Serena's heart pounded like a frantic grouse in flight as he reached for the hem of her skirts. "If you believe you have no soul because you want to toss up my skirts and ravish me, Mr. Swift, then I must have no soul either-"

Her inner thighs were slick with her hot juices, her nipples hard and aching against her shift. Her cunny throbbed, and she wanted this man-she wanted to kiss him, to taste him, to hold him tight as he drove deep inside her- She wanted him so much, so wantonly, because she was a vampire. And he would kill her if he knew.

Chapter Ten.

Tasted Drake knew he couldn't stop. He could still taste the bitter tang of solange on his tongue-the solange he'd finally bought from the apothecary-but it wasn't the drug firing him like this. It was Serena Lark's luscious scent.

She smelled of feminine juices; of rich, musky creaminess; and of the fragrances of a lady- roses, lavender, and soap. That trace of lady like perfume reminded him that she should be untouchable for a rough man like him. But her husky voice sang in his mind, driving him on. Then I have no soul either...

She wanted him. Drake could smell her desire, see the heat of it in her radiant silvery-gray eyes. His fingers tangled in the soft eyelet lace of her petticoats, and he lifted the ma.s.s of her skirts up to her knees. Oh yes.

Her leather half boots followed the arch of her delicate feet and emphasized the slender grace of her ankles. The neat b.u.t.tons marched up her pretty leg, drawing his gaze to silky white stockings, to rose-silk garters, and up higher...to the creamy skin of her thighs. He kissed the inside of her right leg, at the top of her boot, and her gasp rippled through the dark laboratory.

Against his mouth, her stocking was luxurious and gossamer thin. Her petticoats were fine and gauzy and beautifully embroidered. Lady Brookshire had ordered the finest for Serena Lark, and Miss Lark deserved nothing less.

He didn't deserve her- Drake nuzzled his way up her leg, smiling at her cry of pleasure. Behind her knee was the place he sought. A flick of his tongue brought a gasp of surprise. Her soft moan sang in his ears, a promise of the little lark's pleasure.

He needed to pleasure her. Needed to listen to her scream in delight.

But not here-not in this place he'd never been allowed to enter. This gruesome place. This place meant for intelligent, privileged men, not gutter-bred killers.

He met her gaze, her eyes half-shrouded by her thick lashes yet as brilliantly pale as moonlight. "I want to take you to my bedchamber, love."

Miss Lark held back her coal-black curls as she gazed down at him. Her face was a white oval in the gloom, cheeks flushed pink. "I cannot go to your bed, Mr. Swift."

"But do you want to?"

Just a slight hesitation. A quick intake of breath. And her thick, dark lashes dropped seductively. "Yes. Yes, I do. But I can't...I...How could I hunt with you after that...?"

Hunt with you. Ripe, lush, seductive, her aroma triggered his l.u.s.t for a different hunt than vampire slaying-and his c.o.c.k strained against his linens in response. Hunt with him. Suddenly, he wanted it-to partner her, take her into adventure and hunt at her side. "There is no reason you can't come to my bed...if you want to."

Shifting his hips to move his c.o.c.k in his small clothes, Drake reached up and pressed his hand between Miss Lark's thighs. He groaned at the fiery heat of her against his palm, through her drawers.

"Oh!" Her head dropped back, her throat arched in a sensual curve.

"What's the harm, if we both want this?"

"You would no longer respect me. I am well aware of how a gentleman behaves toward a woman he has just bedded."

"You are, are you?" He bit back a laugh-after their night in the brothel he'd discovered her innate s.e.xuality and he wanted to release it.

"And there is always the issue of children."

And her virtue. She didn't speak of it, but Drake knew, of course, how precious that was to a woman of her position. "But I want to give you pleasure, Miss Lark, and I can do it with my tongue. No loss of virtue, no children-only ecstasy. Here. Now."

Even as Drake Swift spoke the words, Serena thought her skin would catch fire from the heat with desire. This man had saved her life. This man had charged into a den of vampires for her.

He rose up, and her skirts caught on his shoulders. Her pelisse and dress and petticoats rose up with him to expose her legs. He pushed them to her waist, to expose the flare of her hips, the vee between her thighs, and the ivory satin of her drawers. She could smell her intimate scent, and she blushed.

But Mr. Swift gave a throaty chuckle. "Hold up your skirts," he directed, and she did. Serena understood what he intended, but she could not speak.

When she'd had her affair with Mr. Bridgewater-with William-she'd barely spoken to him. Things had happened with implicit understanding. She had liked them, but she'd been too confused, too shy, to speak of it. She'd spoken through sighs and silences. While making love, neither had spoken at all.

But she'd been naive then, and innocent, and had used her silence to hide from her wanton nature. Now, for better or worse, she was a woman, and if she was truly to claim ownership of her life and destiny, she had best start here.

"I want you, Mr. Swift." There, she'd said it.

There was no lightning, no crack of thunder. No break in the earth to let the demons of h.e.l.l come through. Only Mr. Swift's grin-a devilish curve of his lips that stole her breath.

He stroked her bare tummy. "Talk to me, little lark. Tell me what you feel."

"I-I-" She let her lashes drop. "I couldn't imagine how to express it."

His elegant fingers hooked in the lacy edges of her drawers and drew them down. Confronted with her own dark curls, dewy and wet, and a glimpse of her dangling pink lips, Serena felt her entire body flush.

"You're lovely, little lark." Mr. Swift drew his finger down from the ivory curve of her stomach to her dark curls. "And I love burying my face here. I love the smell of you. I know I will love your taste."

He glanced up, a naughty gleam danced in his green eyes. "Tell me exactly what you want, Miss Lark. Do you want me to taste you? To lick you?"

Helplessly, she nodded. The soft humor in Drake Swift's voice, the intimacy in it, spoke deeply to her. She had never met such a brazen man, one so determined to be ungentlemanly and rebellious. It made him irresistibly seductive.

Serena now knew why women offered their necks to vampires. Danger and the thought of complete surrender appealed to her soul. Yes.

"As you wish." He grinned-a flash of white teeth and c.o.c.ky bravado. He bent forward, golden lashes lowered, and stuck out his tongue to lick her...belly.

She couldn't help but giggle. But his tongue dipped lower and lower, and she drove her fingernails into the hard wood of the table. This view was so unbearably erotic-to see his powerful body crouched between her thighs, his platinum hair loose, his shirt open, the sleeves rolled up so he could attend to his work.

Again a little laugh escaped.

"I am delighted to know I please you," he teased. And then he kissed her dark nether curls, and her laugh caught in her throat. He tugged them with his teeth, but the small p.r.i.c.k of pain only made her moan in pleasure.

Oh G.o.d...his thumbs traced the insides of her wrists as he pulled on her curls, and the mix of intense pleasure and soft pain brought honey to her quim in a rush. She was soaked with her juices, and he must know. She heard him inhale deeply and groan.

His rough palms slid around her thighs, magic against her skin, and he clamped his hand hard onto her bare bottom. Dragging her forward, he drew her to his face. His tongue rasped that sensitive bud at the very top of her cunny lips.

"Mr. Swift-"

Somehow he chuckled while licking her, and her legs almost gave way. Stars exploded before Serena's eyes. She grabbed at his broad shoulders, and her fingers drove into linen and hard muscle. Oh, it was too much...he had to stop...she didn't think she couldn't take any- But he pulled back and she cried out in frustration. "No!"