Chaos and Moonlight (Order of the Nines Book 1) by A.D. Marrow

throwing off some major bad vibes. What would she say if she knew he’d been camped out in her coat closet all night and was halfway smitten with her already? Once he got her back to the safety of his home he would explain everything to her and hope her logical side would take over and see reason. Yeah, that made a load of sense. Logically, vampires didn’t exist, right? So how in the name of all that was sweet and feathery did he think he was going to be able to talk her into this?
    As much as his mind swam with all of the arm-twisting possibilities, there was a greater fear looming on the horizon.
    Bane and Morrigan were alive and on the hunt for the woman in his passenger seat. Things were about to get ugly, lightning fast. He was going to need to bring in reinforcements to keep her safe.
    He carefully maneuvered the quad cab diesel onto the narrow gravel path that led to the house. After slowly making his way down the thin strip of road, he finally stopped at a large, wrought iron gate. He rolled down the window and was about to enter the code into the keypad when he heard her shift in the seat next to him. She was still passed out cold, slumped into the seat like a rag doll. The sleep softened her face. A wayward curl had fallen over her eyes, and without thinking about what he was doing, Taris leaned over and pushed it away from her forehead. She caught her breath, hitting the top of his hand. It made him pause. He studied her, and as she shifted again, he caught the scent of her shampoo. It was vanilla, warm and sugary, the same intoxicating scent that had been on her coat earlier that night. It whirled around in his nose, and he closed his eyes, inhaling it, taking it deep into his chest. It was that smell that had made his pelvis jerk the first time he looked at her. Now it was permeating every inch of him, and damn him if it didn’t spell trouble with a capital T. When he realized he was still stroking her hair, he jerked his hand back and turned quickly to the window. With a few beeps, the gate began to creek open, and Taris drove the truck through.
    “Tell you what, Doc,” he whispered as he focused on the widening and now paved driveway, “you keep being a bitch to me, and I’ll stay away from you. Otherwise, this could get bad.”

Chapter 8
    In the history of the hostage crisis, Sarah highly doubted there had ever been any kind of kidnapping comparable to hers.
    When she woke up, she was ensconced in what she was convinced had to be silk that angels had handed down to mankind. That silk was tucking her into the softest mattress with the biggest goose down pillows on a gigantic four-poster bed. The surrounding room was painted in deep red, the walls framed with crown molding and thick beveled stark white baseboards. All of the furniture, from the Colonial highboy to the bed in which she sat, was a dark, glossy black.
    On her body was a pair of smooth, powder blue silk pajamas. Her hair was clean, and for the first time in years, she actually felt rested when she woke.
    “What is going on?” she mumbled to herself. Her synapses were firing in overload as she suddenly remembered the smell of that leather trench coat and the way that the guy with the makeup’s voice had echoed on the concrete walls of the stairs and planted itself indelibly into her brain.
    Taris
, the guy said.
    Oh yeah, Taris. The big guy driving the big truck.
    She looked around her, sizing up the room. Even with its bold colors and its sparse decor, it couldn’t be his. There was no way. A guy who stormed around in the middle of the night, flinging knives and taking women out of their beds didn’t live like this.
    After glancing around the room again, the sleep began to fade from her brain, and she came to the realization that she was alone. She slowed her breathing to listen and gently climbed out of the bed. She crept to the door and pressed her ear to its cool paneling when it suddenly flew open. She didn’t have time to react,