Read Online Shadowlight by Lynn Viehl - Free Book Online Page B

association. Friendship seemed unlikely; he might have to resort to a business relationship. His friends Rowan and Drew would have ideas on how best to do that without alarming her. When she accepted him—when she understood that she could trust him—he would have her. She would come to him openly and give herself to him.
    Only then could he destroy her life.
    Six hundred miles to the south of Jessa Bellamy’s apartment, a tall brunette entered the penthouse suite of a beachfront building that served as her lover’s home, business, and base of operations.
    Samantha Brown shrugged out of her jacket and unfastened her shoulder holster, and sent a longing glance in the direction of the sinfully large master bath before booting up her computer terminal. As a Fort Lauderdale homicide detective she had spent most of her nights chasing after killers, and the paperwork involved with her cases never seemed to end. Not that she minded; she was a cop and that was part of the job. Nothing would change that, and nothing had. Not even when she had been fatally shot by a fellow officer who had been stalking her.
    Lucan, a retired assassin and possibly the most lethal living thing on the earth, had killed her stalker and saved her life by changing her into what he was: a blood-dependent immortal who could heal instantly, possessed incredible strength, and yet who tried to coexist with humans peacefully.
    Aside from the lousy diet, and the fact that she’d fallen in love with one of the deadliest men on the planet, Samantha really couldn’t complain.
    “You coldhearted bastard,” Samantha muttered as she read the e-mail sent to her from a contact in the Atlanta FBI field office.
    The reflection of a tall, long-limbed man appeared on her computer screen, and two large, lethal hands gloved in black velvet rested on her shoulders. “You called for me, my love?”
    “Not this time.” Sam rubbed her cheek absently against the back of Lucan’s glove.
    Ignoring a six-foot-five, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound vampire, especially one who looked like Lucan, was next to impossible. Even if Sam had been blind, she would have smelled him from a mile away. Tuned to the seductive scent of his immortal body, like dark fields of night-blooming jasmine, she’d known the moment he’d entered the suite. When he touched her, her own body responded with annoying immediacy.
    But the information sent to her from Atlanta held her riveted.
    Sam didn’t sleep until dawn, and she usually spent the last hours of the night in her lover’s arms. But when she had arrived home from work, Lucan had been busy downstairs clearing out and closing the club. She’d come up to the penthouse suite they shared to take a shower and catch up on some e-mail while she waited for him. She liked to stay busy when she was alone in the penthouse, the uppermost two floors of Lucan’s building, which he had extensively remodeled before they’d met to serve as his private domain.
    It wasn’t that she felt uncomfortable in their suite. Anyone would appreciate the spectacular, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views from the wraparound impact-glass windows recently installed; standing in the center of the great room, she could turn around and see the Atlantic Ocean, the Intracoastal Waterway, Port Everglades, and Fort Lauderdale’s sleek modern skyline all at once. Comfortable lounges had been placed on the outer terraces so she could recline under the stars and watch the dark surge of the tide roll in over the pristine amber sands of their private beach. If she wanted anything, she just had to pick up a telephone and ask; no matter what it was, the serving staff, which worked three shifts around the clock, would deliver it within minutes.
    All the splendor, elegance, and luxury of the suite had been designed to pamper the occupants. If she wanted to, she could sleep in either of the two master suites or any of three guest rooms, or take a long, hot shower in one of the four