Hot Summer Bites: A Castle of Dark Dreams Novella (A Penguin Special from Berkley Sensation) by Nina Bangs Page A

lips away from fangs that looked a lot scarier now that Kristin wasn’t in a sexual frenzy.
    Saffron seemed to realize that maybe his entrance had been a little precipitous. Every hair on his fluffy white body stood on end, and his tail puffed up to twice its normal size. He looked like a furry snowball.
    “Hey, man, I was just riding to your rescue. You were in here a long time, and the hatch was locked from inside. Everyone was worried that maybe something had happened to you guys.”
    “And
everyone
was?” Kristin was with Taurin on this. If she had fangs, she’d be flashing them.
    “Uh, I guess Banan and me. Real men act when they think someone’s in danger, so we decided to make sure you didn’t need saving.” Saffron backed toward the open hatch. “Banan said he’d look in the window, and I opened the hatch. Locks don’t stop me.”
    Taurin was in full furious-vampire form. He hissed at Saffron. “You both wanted to see what you could see. Okay, satisfied? Question, cat, who’s going to save
you
?”
    “I’ll take him off your hands.”
Asima poked her aristocratic head through the hatch.
“Oh, I left your scarf in your room, Kristin.”
There was a brilliant white flash of light, and both cats were gone.
    A quick glance assured Kristin that Banan was also gone. She thought about turning her back while Taurin dressed, but decided she’d be better served by getting her last big hit of his magnificent bare body.
    Because now that her heartbeat had slowed and her breathing was kind of normal, she realized what she’d almost done. The scary part? She regretted the “almost” part. Her mind knew that any involvement with Taurin Veris was bad news, but her body wanted what it wanted, and that was that. She was in trouble.
    “I guess a better man would say he was sorry that happened.” His smile was slow, wicked, and totally sensual. “Guess that’s not me.”
    Guess that wasn’t
her,
either. She was doing a great job of compartmentalizing. What he’d done to her career still outraged her—even though she understood the why of it—but that didn’t keep her from wanting to be with him, and she definitely still wanted his body. At what point would the wall between the two compartments spring a leak, and would the resulting mix freeze into a block of ice or go up in flames?
    Kristin sighed. She was betting on the flames. “So what will I take away from this for my article?” She climbed from the sub and then waited for Taurin to join her. “You never finished the story about the woman and the three guys.”
    He walked beside her back toward the castle. No way was she going on to another attraction with her bra stuck down the back of her shorts.
    “After their time in the sub was up, only the woman came out.” Taurin glanced at her and smiled. “The park employee in charge of the attraction went into the sub to see what had happened.”
    “And?” Kristin hoped the punch line to this story was great, because she needed something fantastic to make up for her sexual frustration tonight.
    “The three men were chained to the instrument panel.”
    “Whoa.” This was good stuff.
    “Naked.”
    “Wow, bet they were embarrassed.” Kristin couldn’t wait to get back to her room so she could write this up.
    “Don’t think so. They were all smiling.”
    And as Taurin held the door of the castle open for her, she tried not to think of his bare muscular body chained to her very own instrument panel.

Chapter Six
    “So, how are things going?” Sparkle perched on the stool behind her candy counter. She crossed her legs as she stared at Deimos, who was nervously rubbing the top of his shiny shaved head.
    Her nails were perfect, her shoes were perfect, her dress was perfect, and she was perfectly bored. She missed the challenge, the excitement of meddling in the sexual lives of the people around her. But Deimos had to do this himself, hence, no meddling.
    Maybe he’d fail miserably, and then she’d