Vacation with a Vampire & Other Immortals by Maureen Child, MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

shudder, and then he gave in. He wound his arms around her waist and bent over her, pushing her back into the sand so that his body was angled over hers, and then he kissed her. He kissed her like she’d never been kissed before, and every single part of her came alive.
    “Diego,” she whispered. “Diego.”
    She arched upward against him, felt the hardness of his arousal pressing into her thigh. And then, to her stunned amazement, he rolled away, sitting up, blinking in the night as if his entire being were shattered.
    “Diego?” she asked.
    He said nothing. She sat up, as well, sliding a hand over his shoulders from behind.
    “Please, talk to me.”
    “There’s nothing to talk about. I can’t do this with you, Anna. I know where it’s going to end, and I don’t want to go there again.”
    She closed her eyes. “I want to stay here, Diego. I want to stay here, on the island with you, for whatever time I have left in this life. It can’t be more than a month—six weeks at the outside.”
    “No.” It sounded as if he had to force the word through a space too tight for it.
    “But…but I’m dying. I don’t have anything to go back to. I’ll stay out of your way, I’ll do whatever you need me to do, but please, don’t make me go back.”
    He rose to his feet, so that her hands fell from his broad shoulders. She stayed where she was. “You need to leave. And you’re obviously strong enough to do so. We’ll set sail tomorrow night at sundown.”
    “Diego, please!”
    “Don’t beg, Anna. It’s beneath you.”
    “I don’t have a damn thing to lose.”
    “There’s always your pride.”
    “You’re a hard, cold man, aren’t you?”
    He shrugged. “I’m going to my workshop for a few hours. I don’t want to be bothered.”
    “Fine. You go to your damn workshop, you selfish bastard.”
    He walked away, seemingly unperturbed by her parting shot. Anna sank to her knees in the sand and wept bitterly. And she wasn’t even sure why.

Chapter 9
     
    S he sat there in the sand, staring out at the half-moon and drinking the bottle of wine he’d left behind. When she was all cried out, she sat in silence for a while, trying to analyze just what was behind her roiling feelings. They were confused and tumultuous, far from the peaceful, blissful state she’d found while alone at sea.
    That state, she decided, had been one of calm acceptance. She knew she was dying. She had made a choice to spend her time on the sea, and she had been enjoying every moment of it.
    That was no longer the case, and she struggled to figure out why. Why, for example, wasn’t her dying request to Diego something entirely different? Why wasn’t she begging him to loan her his sailboat so that she could continue on the path she had chosen, to die at sea, maybe sail close to this island again when she sensed the time was near and just anchor offshore, so he could come get his boat when it was over?
    That request would have made more sense to her. To him, too, probably. But she had no desire to borrow his boat or head back out to sea. Her only wish was to stay here on this tiny chunk of paradise. And not alone, either. She wanted to stay here with him. There was something so…so compelling about him. Something that felt…intimately connected to her. She wanted to touch him, to be close to him all the time, and she barely knew the man. And yet it felt as if she knew him. It felt as if she’d known him all her life.
    And loved him even longer.
    She was no longer so much at peace with dying. Rather than that calm, blissful state of acceptance she’d felt before, there was now a sense of time running out. A sense of urgency to use what time was left to get closer to him, to this place.
    She closed her eyes, lowered her head and sighed. Maybe it was just the approach of her own end making her feel such a wild array of nonsensical emotions. Maybe everyone got all tied up in knots when they knew they were short on time. Of course they