"I can do this," Julie said, as much to convince herself as to convince William. She flipped the blade open, took a deep breath and sliced across her wrist.

Pain seared through her and she bit down hard on her lip to keep from crying out.

"Hurry." William said. "Her life force is slipping away. The sooner she drinks the vampire's blood, the better chance we have of turning her."

Blood oozed from the wound and dripped onto the ground. Julie knelt beside her friend and pressed the b.l.o.o.d.y wrist to Kim's lips. "Please, Kim. Live."

Chapter Ten.

When Roger opened his eyes, he stared up at the street lamp over his head and tried to remember where he was and what the h.e.l.l happened. The image of the big, blond vampire biting into Kim's throat surfaced as his last consciousness thought and he jerked to a sitting position.

A few yards away, Julie and her neighbor, William, kneeled next to Kim's limp body and Julie had her wrist pressed to Kim's mouth.

"What are you doing?" Roger asked. Julie's gaze darted to his, her eyes wide and...guilty? Then a jerky smile lifted the corners of her lips. "Oh Roger, you're awake.

Please, stay where you are until I can get the ER staff out here to a.s.sist you."

Why didn't she just answer him? He climbed to his feet, staggering a few steps beneath the weight of a pounding headache and a twisted ankle. "I don't want a.s.sistance. I want to know what the h.e.l.l you're doing. Is that blood?"

Red liquid dripped down the side of Kim's mouth.

Julie glanced down at her friend, her face soft and worried. "We're trying to save Kim."

"She's bleeding. Shouldn't she be the one in the ER room?"

"It's too late for that." Julie's mouth twisted. "Besides, it's not her blood. It's mine."

He crossed the pavement toward them. "What do you mean?"

"She's already dead," Julie said in a whisper, her gaze soft as she stared down at her friend. "All we can hope to do is turn her."

What was she saying? Roger pushed across his scalp. h.e.l.l, even his hair hurt. "Turn her to what?"

Julie stared up at him. "A vampire."

He stopped in mid-stride. Had he heard her right? "But isn't she already a vampire?"

As Julie shook her head, he traced back through his conversation with her earlier. "But you said your friend..." He stopped and thought again. "Kim's not the vampire?"

Julie shook her head again.

Roger looked across at William. "Him?"

"Well, yes. William is a vampire." As Julie rose to her feet, tears trembled on the edges of her eyelids. "But he's not the only one I was talking about."

"You mean you have more friends who are vampires?"

She shook her head. "No. I was really talking about me."

"You?" Roger sucked in a deep breath as her words sank in. "You're a vampire?"

"Yes." Julie's chin lifted and she met his gaze. "I'm a vampire."

"Wait. Let me get this straight." Roger tipped his head to the side, his brain slogging through that last little bit she'd said. "You're a what?"

"Vampire."

He inhaled and let it out before asking, "Have you always been?"

"No." She pressed a hand to the wrist that had been bleeding, but the blood was already drying, the wound closing.

"How long have you been a...a?" He couldn't say it, much less believe what she said. Not his sweet Julie.

"A vampire." She sighed. "I've been a vampire since the night before our first date." "All this time we've been together, you knew?"

She nodded, her shoulders sagging. "I didn't know how to tell you."

He clamped a hand to his neck. "Did you..."

"Bite you?" Her gaze dropped to her feet. "Once."

That's why his neck had hurt so much. "Last night?"

"Yes."

"Look, Decker, she didn't tell you, because she didn't want to lose you. If you can't handle that she's a vampire, that's your problem." William stood, lifting Kim in his arms. She still lay limp and lifeless, but color was beginning to return to her cheeks. "I need to get her to the apartment before morning."

Julie nodded to William "Go ahead. I'll see you before dawn."

After William left. Julie faced Roger, her shoulders pushing back. "Are you going to tell anyone?"

"Hey, Decker," Parker's voice called out behind him.

Roger turned toward his friend. "I'm here. You all right?"

"Other than a Texas-sized headache, I think I'll live." Parker climbed to his feet and staggered over to Roger. "What happened to Mr. Nasty?"

"He's gone," Julie answered, her gaze on Roger. "For good."

Roger nodded.

Parker scrubbed a hand over his face. "Guess what the chief said was true. We got us some vampires kickin' a.s.s in the city."

"Yeah." Roger felt as though he'd been kicked in the gut. Vampires in the city, having his a.s.s pounded by one, then finding out his girlfriend was one of the bad guys and she'd bit him all in one day was more than he could handle. "Come on Parker, let's get back to the station and report what happened." He couldn't look at Julie. Wouldn't.

Her hand shot out and caught his arm. "Are you going to report everything?"

For a long moment, he stared at her hand. He couldn't believe she was a vampire. She looked just like she'd always looked. The part that bothered him most was that she didn't trust him enough to tell him. When he gazed into her eyes, his jaw tightened. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

William took Kim back to his apartment to keep an eye on her through the night and Julie reported to work on time. If her uniform was a little dirty and her hair a mess, she couldn't help it. Frankly, she didn't care. Roger had walked away from her without kissing her goodbye.

By the look on his face when he'd left, he might never kiss her again.

When she got a free moment, Julie called William. Kim hadn't woken yet, but he felt certain they'd caught her in time.

"You comin' down with what Kim has?" Nurse Lindeman stepped up next to her at the nurses station, a chart open in her hands.

Julie almost laughed at how close the head nurse was to the truth. "Definitely." Lindeman completed her notes on the clipboard and handed it to the nurse behind the counter, before she turned to face Julie.

"It's kinda of slow around here, why don't you go home? We can handle the rest of the shift."

She wasn't sure she wanted to go home, but her mind wasn't on the care of her patients. All she could think about was Roger and whether or not he'd forgive her and accept her for what she was. Yes, she needed a long walk to clear her mind. "If you're sure you don't mind."

Lindeman gave her one of her rare smiles and pushed her toward the door. "Go on."

Before the head nurse could change her mind, Julie left the ER and walked as fast as she could, putting as much distance between her and the hospital as she could. The farther she went the more she realized she couldn't walk away from her problems. If Roger chose never to see her again, she'd have to live with that. She couldn't undo what Luke had done, and she couldn't stop being a vampire to make Roger want to see her again.

When she finally looked up, she was standing in front of the old apartment house. Sitting on the steps in front was Roger.

Her heart skidded to a halt and her breath lodged in her throat. Roger had come back.

As soon as he saw her, he stood and glanced toward the sky. "Shouldn't you be getting inside? It'll be dawn soon."

Julie nodded and pulled her key from her purse. She had to walk past him to get to the door. The scent of his cologne and the smell of leather combined to make every one of her nerves stand up and shout hallelujah. Roger was back.

Why?

Moving past him, she entered the house and climbed the stairs to her apartment. At her door, she paused with the key poised to slide into the doork.n.o.b. "Why are you here?"

"We need to talk." His jaw was as tight as it had been when he'd left her earlier and the scowl on his forehead didn't bode well.

Julie nodded and shoved the key into the lock. A flash of anger surged through her. For the past two hours, she'd been wandering the streets wondering whether or not she'd ever see Roger and here he was. Happiness was the appropriate reaction, and she might have been happy if not for the fierce look and feel to the cop following her into her apartment.

As soon as Roger closed the door behind him, he turned to grab Julie's arms. "Why?"

That seemed to be the question du jour.

She knocked his hands away and fisted her hands on her hips. "Why what?"

"Why did you lie to me? Why couldn't you just tell me the truth?"

"I tried. But I couldn't."

Roger shook his head, his lips twisting. "I thought you were the one. The only woman I could trust...and then this." He strode across the room and back. "Why?"

"You think I wanted to be a vampire? My life was on track. Great job, a man interested in me and me in him. Then bam!" She threw her arms in the air. "One day I'm human, the next I'm a vampire. I could barely accept it myself. How was I supposed to tell you?"

"The truth would have been a good start."

"Well, I didn't. Okay? So I'm flawed, I'm not perfect." "I don't expect you to be perfect. I just expect you to tell me the important stuff."

"Just because I'm a vampire, doesn't change who I am inside. I still have feelings, I can still love." Her anger evaporated and she sagged onto the arm of the couch. What was the use? He couldn't love her. She was a monster.

Roger strode to her and gripped her arms, lifting her to her feet. "I was so in love with you. I wanted us to be together forever."

His words came out hard and fast, as if he forced them out. "We were good together."

She stared into his eyes. "So what's changed?"

"Everything."

Julie couldn't take any more of this, not from the man she'd thought she loved. Tears welled in her eyes and one slid down her cheek. "If that's the way you feel, there's the door. Why don't you use it? Go!" If he walked out, she didn't know what she'd do.

He was the only man she cared about. The only one she could see herself spending her life with. Now that she could be stuck with eternity, he was still the one. "You heard me, go."

His grip tightened until his fingers dug into her arms. "I can't." Then he was kissing her, his mouth slanting hard over hers, his tongue pushing past her teeth to tangle with hers, thrusting hard.

In the back of her mind, she knew she should push him away and toss him out of her apartment. They hadn't resolved anything between them. The kiss was only clouding the issues and putting off decisions that had to be made.

As the kiss deepened, Julie gave herself up to the rise of desire welling inside. This was where she wanted to be. Surely they could work things out.

Roger's fingers loosened on her arms and his hands blazed a path down to her hips. With a not so gentle jerk, he yanked her against him until his engorged c.o.c.k pressed into her belly. "You do this to me."

Her pelvis rocked automatically, rubbing against the hard ridge of his zipper. She wanted him inside her, f.u.c.king her.

"What have you done to me?" he said. "I can't trust you, and I can't get enough of you."

The growl in his voice sent waves of intense longing burning through her. Cream leaked between her legs, wetting the path to her core. No longer content to wait, she squeezed her hands between them and wriggled his trouser b.u.t.ton loose. The zipper streaked downward until his trousers fell open. That rigid hunk of male anatomy pushed against snowy white briefs, creating a tempting tent, she couldn't resist.

His hands dipped beneath her scrubs shirt and rose up her rib cage to her lacy bra. Her nipples puckered into tight beads of antic.i.p.ation. Her shirt flew up over her head, and into to the far corner, her pants following. When she stood in nothing but her bra and panties, her entire body shook and it was all she could do to restrain herself from using her strength to toss this man into her bed and f.u.c.k him like there was no tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Her resolve to settle things resurfaced in a momentary flash of conscience.

Then Roger slid her bra straps over her shoulders and downward.

Her skin quivered against the rough texture of his fingertips and all thought fled. The sooner she was completely naked, the sooner she could have him inside her filling the void of longing making her p.u.s.s.y moist.

He jerked the clasp loose and flung her bra to the wall. Then he bent to rasp his tongue across first one then the other nipple, pulling the second one into his mouth and sucking hard.The answering tug deep inside made her hands rise to his hair and pull him closer. "Please."

While his lips teased her breast, his fingers dove south, skimming across her abdomen to the furry mound between her thighs.