I slid back onto him and, self-conscious, stroked my clit. His erection jacked up one size. I stroked again and he groaned. I started pumping my hips as I stroked again and a sound escaped his throat that in a lesser man would have been a whimper.

That unlocked whatever reservations I felt. If I could make Nikos whimper, it was good-and I was doing it. I put one hand to my nipple and the other to my sex and stroked myself to fever pitch.

Nikos watched with hot eyes, his fangs growing long, his cock swelling even fatter inside me. His chest pumped up and his hands were almost white from pulling against the ties. Not to escape. No, to keep himself from moving, not wanting to distract me, his total focus on my every act.

I could move, and I did with abandon. Seeing my arousal stoke his, I pinched my nipple and fondled my pussy and stroked myself eagerly on his fat cock. I got so turned on I forgot myself and grabbed handfuls of male chest and started to ride him hard.

I pumped myself on him until I was panting, he was panting, and our bones were rattling. Under my hands his chest flushed with sex rash. His nipples were tight as pins.

“Twyla…love…can’t stop. I’m coming.” He threw his head back, jaw clenched, obviously in extremes. “You’re making me come.”

“Then come, damn it.” I clutched my pussy muscles screamingly tight and slammed myself into his body like a jackhammer.

Roaring even louder than before, he arched back, a muscular rearing stallion, driving himself so far into me my throat hurt. I exploded just as he did, in hard waves of pleasure that nearly ripped me apart.

Nikos cried out. “Theos-your tight sheath is milking me. I come…more…again.” He writhed under me as if dying. His face was clenched as if in agony. His hips bucked.

I held on through it all, destroyed by my own orgasm.

When it was over I slumped limp onto Nikos’s slick body. His heart beat hard in my ear, slowly returning to normal. I wished I could.

Before, he was intriguing-and safe. I’d poke at him, he’d ignore me.

Now that I’d gotten his fierce attention, though…Nikos was a conqueror, plain and simple. Hot water to the wool sweater of my ego. It was already shrunk enough.

A deep voice rumbled against my skull. “You will like living at the apartment with me.” A big hand started rubbing my back.

My eyes slid open. Scraps of tie decorated the bent bedposts. Nikos could have freed himself at any time. Control was an illusion. There was a lesson in that somewhere. “What apartment?”

“Emersons’.”

“I already like…living-I’m not moving in with you!” I sat up, pushing against the only solid surface-which happened to be his huge chest. It only proved my point. He was the kind of male who’d roll right over a woman. If I had inadequacy issues before, he’d make me feel like a bug under the Statue of Liberty. “We slept together once. A couple times. Whatever! It doesn’t mean we’re going to live together.”

“Twyla.” Nikos sat up easily to take my face in both hands. His sable eyes searched mine. “This was about giving you strength, not stealing it.” He kissed me, softly. For such a big man he could be amazingly gentle. “We’ll talk of hearts later. Have you laid any plans for battle?”

“What? Me? Why should I-”

His dark look cut me off. And that was the Spartan general too. Never accepting anything less than a soldier’s best.

“All right, wait. Let me think.” I tried to imagine myself the warrior Nikos thought me. Tried to pretend I had as much to contribute as everyone else. Hell, it was better than thinking about hearts. “Do you have your computer? I can show you what I know about the Magie company I set Aylmer up with. Klaus. Whoever.” I did a face-palm. “Now I understand why Aylmer had me use Jones instead of his real name. Damn, there’s so much I’m missing. Maybe you can fill in the blanks with some translations.”

Nikos leaped out of bed, sweeping me along easily in one arm. He sat me in a chair in front of his netbook. Naked. Between the bent bedposts and the upholstery cleaning from my, um, he was going to have quite a bill.

I pulled up my web-based email. Leaning over my shoulder, Nikos started scrolling through it. The position must have been uncomfortable for him but I loved the feel of his heat behind me, the small kisses he bestowed on me each time he paged down.

While he read, I thought out loud. “We have to assume the vampire plot has something to do with the favor Aylmer asked me. I can’t imagine him feeling obliged to invite a houseguest for anything less.”

“Reasonable.” Nikos was a fast reader, flipping through emails as quickly as the connection let him. No doubt we’d have to buy a second bookshelf for our bedroom-shit. He distracted me by pointing to a paragraph in Czech. “Bujný a Zvuk Magie has a number of subsidiaries. The group you worked with is Steale Programové. They do computers. I don’t like this.”

“Computers? That only proves Aylmer wasn’t the one I got the job for. He thinks computers are the joint invention of the devil, the IRS and little green men.” Conscience kicked me as I remembered the blood in Aylmer ’s bathroom. Crazy, yes. But injured, possibly critically. Maybe bleeding out…no, I had to trust Nikos’s judgment. Aylmer was alive and relatively intact. I hung on to that.

As Nikos flipped emails, his dark eyes flashed taupe in the screen’s reflected light. “Specifically, Steale Programové computerizes light and sound systems.”

“Taken in conjunction with Times Square -damn.”

“What?”

“Steale Programové must be involved with the New Year’s sound system. And shoulder-to-shoulder skyscrapers make Times Square a box canyon of sound. What time is it? We need to get out there.”

“Past ten thirty.” Nikos started throwing on clothes, not his usual suit and tie but black jeans and sweater. Somehow he made even the casual clothes look severe.

Or maybe it was the long leather coat he used to cover the three-foot kopis that made him look so deadly.

I dressed too. “I read up on the New Year’s celebration because I planned to go. People start arriving before sunset, whole blocks of them. By ten thirty the area from Thirty-eighth Street to Fifty-ninth is filled. The entertainment has to reach all of them, so there’s a huge sound system. Then when the Ball drops, everything stops except for the beat marking the seconds. The whole square counts off the last ten seconds. A million people, chanting together.”

“You’ve mentioned the Ball Drop before. What is it?”

I stared at him. “How can you have missed the most important New Year’s fixture of the last hundred years? Nearly six tons of crystal and LEDs starts at the top of a flagpole at eleven fifty-nine and descends to the bottom in exactly one minute, flashing a huge light show. We’ve gotta hurry, Nikos.”

“First we must gather information and allies.” Nikos flipped out his phone, hit a speed dial. “Julian. There’s a problem.” He spoke rapidly and to the point.

While he talked I picked up the switchblade xiphos, tested the feel and weight. It was built for gigantic Nikos, thick and heavy in my hand. Although I wanted to be useful if it came down to a battle, I’d be more likely to hurt myself with this than help. Reluctantly, I set it back down.

“Julian said the hypnosis device was destroyed.” Nikos slipped his phone back into his pocket, his face grim. “Tonight we are dealing with the unknown.”

I started for the door. “All the more reason to hurry.”

“No. We can’t go into battle blind-” His fangs shot out full-length. He pulled me from the door with a low growl.

A rich voice sounded from the hallway. “Pax.”

It was Klaus. Nikos growled louder and, pushing me behind him, drew his sword from under his coat.

“I need to talk to you, Nikos. I demand pax.”