He just held her for moments, for minutes, silently, before Mal spoke.

"I don't know where we go from here."

"We will find our path."

Mal suddenly pushed off his lap, ignoring the fullness she'd felt in his crotch area.

"I...um. I have to go back to the house. Erin and Jack will be worried about me."

"I won't leave. If you want me, if you need me, I will be here on this island."

"I need time, Ahmose."

He smiled. "We have all the time in the world now."

"We'll see." Mal paused. "Ahmose, how is Luka? Is he doing okay?"

"Yes. He will be, anyway. It's still a challenge, but he's slowly adjusting. I put him with one of my best aids to guide him these past months. She's an angel with him and he seems to have taken to her. Still, even with her, he's surly."

Her eyes misted again, but she smiled. "That's Luka, all right. Goodnight, Ahmose."

With one last long lingering look at him, Mal turned and walked back to the house, up the stairs, and opened the door. Erin waited with Brigitte in her arms.

"He's magnificent," Erin said quietly.

Mal took her daughter and held her close to draw in her scent. Was she trying to purge that of her father's?

"G.o.d, he is."

"I sent Jack home."

"Thank you. I need to sleep."

"You're overwhelmed. Go ahead, I'll take Brigitte below with me in case you need to have some time to think."

"Thank you, Erin."

Mal went into her room and dropped onto her bed, and although she closed her eyes, she knew she wouldn't sleep.

An hour later, rolling around for most of it, Mal sat up in the darkness. He was out there, she knew it. This was his day, and he would have no place else to go here.

But that wasn't it. She knew he was out there because she could feel him. Why the h.e.l.l did she feel him?

The nightgown Mal wore was nearly sheer, a fabric with a loose weave for the warm nights. She should have dressed, she knew that. She also knew why she hadn't.

Barefoot again, she so rarely wore shoes here, Mal walked down the stairs towards the beach. The moon had moved from one side of the sea to the other, but still lit the sands with its glow.

It also illuminated the tall man who sat on the sand some distance from the house.

It took a few moments to walk to him, but Mal refused to hurry. She didn't want to send the wrong message.

As she approached, Ahmose looked up and smiled.

"You should be sleeping."

"No. I usually live a vampire's hours. Because of Erin."

"Ah. She's taken good care of you."

"She's been wonderful."

Mal dropped down across from Ahmose, her legs crossed and looked into his eyes. "We're new now. We don't have a relationship. What we were before, was exactly as I said, a spectacular hook-up. I meant it when I told you that I don't know what to expect here, and I don't know where to go. I don't believe we have a mystical destiny. Erin told me you're from a powerful, n.o.ble race. I don't belong with you then."

"If you think that I am from this powerful race, then why don't you trust what I tell you?"

"You're just mistaken. I don't believe in fairytales and picture-perfect movie endings. We are not destined."

Ahmose smiled, his perfect white teeth almost electric in the moonlight. "You've challenged me."

"What? No, I just..."

"You've challenged me, and I will rise to the challenge. You don't know if what we had together has any chance of being real. You don't know if I'm insane, or if destiny really does have a plan for us, for our little family that we've created unexpectedly. I believe that we do. So, I accept the challenge. I will prove that we are a great deal more than a one-night-stand. Prepare to be persuaded."

She felt one of his hands around each of her ankles as he slid her down to the ground, splayed like a snow angel in the sand.

"I always meet a challenge," he whispered, and came up along Mal's side to pull back the loose fitting top of her nightgown to expose a breast.

"Now, I think this is a good place to start. One must be methodical in proving a theory."

Mal did not move a muscle as he leaned in and pulled the exposed nipple into his mouth, kept it there, and used his vampire skills to excite it to hardness. Still, she didn't move.

"You need more convincing, I see. In the second part of my exploration, I think I must move deeper into my subject."

When he heard Mal's moan and felt her move her legs apart, just slightly, he knew he had her, he knew she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.

"You won't have to worry about losing your baby...you're coming home with me," Ahmose whispered.

"No," Mal whispered back, but her hands curled into his hair before he lowered himself out of reach and lifted her b.u.t.tocks. She'd been wearing panties, but they were gone. "Ahmose, it's too soon, I just gave birth."

"You're completely healed, baby. Shoazan's heal even quicker than vampires. Let me prove it."

The first touch of his tongue moving back and forth quickly between her legs, the sensual buildup when he licked along the thighs and just short of reaching where she wanted him to be, was beyond her ability to accept. She'd been s.e.xually aroused almost as soon as she saw him tonight, and she thought part of that was because her body recognized the father of the child she'd carried for months. It was the simplest thing on earth, she wanted him, on her, in her, under her, every way she could get him.

Mal stilled his movement with one hand on the top of his head, and he looked up.

Even in the darkness, Ahmose's eyes held a glow typical of arousal for a first blood, and Mal's eyes still glowed as Shoazan, so they locked onto each other, his questioningly, hers demanding.

"Stop. If we're going to do this, if we're going to be together, I want to feel you inside of me again. The last few days, since our child was born, I've felt an emptiness. You are what I need to fill it, I knew that the first night."

He'd thought to woo her back to him slowly, with patience and skill.

This would do!

Up on her elbows, Mal watched as Ahmose stood, and moving too slowly, like humans, he pulled his tee shirt over his head. Her eyes roamed the ma.s.sive chest and tight, well-defined muscles of his shoulders, chest, and carved abdominals. He undressed slowly, and while she wanted him inside of her worse than anything, she knew that would come shortly. But this, unveiling his body to her appreciative eyes, painstakingly revealing his perfection, she immersed herself in the experience. Her eyes moved across thick, curved biceps to powerful forearms, and from there to his fingers as they unsnapped his jeans and slid them down.

He sprung free of the tight fabric, his c.o.c.k long, hard, precisely what she wanted right at this moment she had never believed would come.

Mal pulled her gown over her head and discarded it carelessly. "Now."

It was a demand. Anyone who knew Ahmose would have expected him to be the last person to accept a demand gracefully.

"At your pleasure," he said as he lowered the body that she'd just watched, revealed to hungry eyes, drop down to cover hers. He stretched his full length alongside her, skin to skin, everywhere they touched, a spark of energy sizzled. Ahmose threaded the fingers of each hand through each of hers, and lowered his head to nip at her neck, just blunt nips, followed by his tongue to tease and taste.

"Can you feel that? The electricity? Our bodies know each other and know we were meant to be together."

Mal wanted to tell him that was bulls.h.i.t. Destiny? Meant to be? Hardly. Fairy-tale fantasies to charm little girls, it didn't exist.

Yet, as her body reached for his, as something indefinable came over her, she knew this was something more than physical. She knew she wanted to f.u.c.k him, that he wanted to f.u.c.k her. As much as she tried to tell herself that, her body responded to the touch of his as if it knew where it was going, needed to be there, and would not be denied this connection. This was not a f.u.c.k.

Ahmose lifted up and slid inside of Mal with no foreplay, no warning, he just went where he needed to be, and she lifted her legs to let them ride on his back so that he could thrust deeper. Her eyes closed, Mal saw him anyway, in her mind's eye, where she realized that she was inextricably linked to his life force. They did belong together. He was home, her home and that of the little girl they had made together six months ago.

He moved quickly at first, a crescendo of sensations building fast for both of them, but then he slowed and began to play, took time to nip at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which drove her to lift up into him, reaching for him. Even though Ahmose was deep inside of her, Mal needed more. An explosion of feelings rocked her as he suddenly stiffened and came, driving her over the edge too. They rode the o.r.g.a.s.m, the first for either since the last time they were together, emotionally and physically connected as neither had ever been with anyone else in their lives.

When they dropped back, spent, still, on the sand afterward, Ahmose reached for Mal, but she rolled away and began to walk down the beach, away from the house, away from him, towards the surf. Water curled around her bare ankles and licked up her legs. She moaned, because she was still fired up and the roaming water felt sensual to her heated skin.

She knew he'd followed her, and glanced behind to see him hovering.

"You're all right?" he asked quietly.

Mal didn't know how to answer. She was breathless and excited, and she was frightened. Having this man here, ready to take her to his home, to his life, to give her daughter a true family, she couldn't process it all. It was too sudden, too bizarre, too inexplicable. She would have to leave everything she'd ever known, a job that she loved, any chance at a normal life.

And he wasn't human. How would she fit in his world? She needed to talk to Erin.

And she needed her father.

"Ahmose, I understand what you're feeling. I'm feeling it too, but I'm overwhelmed. Do you have somewhere safe to stay on the island?"

He nodded. "It's the first thing vampires do when they travel. I've engaged a house on the other side of the island with a windowless lower level."

"Okay. The sun will be here soon and I'm spent. Will you go now and let me get some rest?"

"I will comply with anything you ask. See, you can control the vampire. All you need to do is ask."

Mal shook her head and smiled. "Quit being so charming or I'll come with you to that house now and wear you out."

Now, he grinned. "Please try."

Mal gave him a light push. "Get your clothes on and get out of here."

Ahmose bowed and slid his hands up her arms until he reached her face. The kiss was soft, then deeper, but gentle, and as he stepped back, he sighed. "I am so grateful that you are alive, Mal. May I come tomorrow night when I rise?"

"I wish you would."

"It is done. Sleep well, little detective."

Ahmose had no reason to hide his nature, he was dressed and gone in seconds. The speed at which he moved made her head hurt.

"d.a.m.n!" she whispered.

As she picked up her nightgown and dropped it into place, she walked slowly back to the deck and reached for her cell phone lying on the tabletop in the center of the lounge chairs.

Dialing, she waited, and when the call connected, a sleepy voice said, "h.e.l.lo?"

It was a new cell and he wouldn't know who she was.

"Pop? Can you come to me? I need you and so does your granddaughter."

Erin had the baby settled in. Her cell chimed and she glanced at it. Kai? She'd told him months ago she hadn't seen his daughter, at her request, and after the first two months, he'd stopped checking.

"Yes?" she answered.

"Erin, you owe me, lady. You've had my girl all this time and you didn't tell me."

"I have? I didn't notice that. Well, I'll have to look around then, won't I?"

"Cheeky woman, but you always were. I know it's because she demanded you to keep it from me."

Erin spoke softer this time. "My loyalty belonged to her, Kai. I promised to help her disappear, but also to protect you. You were all she had left."

"How's my granddaughter?"

"Kai, come here right away. She's incredibly beautiful. For all of her first blood features, I see you in her face."

"I'm on my way."

Chapter 19.

Jack waited on the deck, the sun was just beginning to rise, his head turned when he heard the door open to the house, and sighed with relief when Mal came down the stairs with a steaming mug.

"Where's our baby?" he asked.

"I left her with Erin. Good morning, Jack." Mal waited for him to ask about Ahmose, but he didn't. She realized that Erin must have compelled him to forget about Ahmose's arrival. Thank G.o.d. The last thing she needed to deal with this morning was a jealous man.