THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

alley while everyone huddled indoors where it was warm and dry. Where they wouldn’t hear her cries.
    “No, sweetheart, I don’t want that, either.”
    His lips parted on a smile and her gaze dropped to his bared teeth. As soon as she saw his incisors, she knew what he did want. Her rational mind rebelled against the truth, but her blood knew. Her pulse leapt into overdrive.
    “No!”
    The word was smothered against his hand. He angled her neck and sank his teeth deep into her throat. She felt the pierce of his grossly elongated incisors like the hot stab of IV needles. Adrenaline arced through her, lending her strength as she fought him, but she might as well have tried to knock down the brick wall at her back.
    On and on she struggled, but he clung to her, oblivious of her efforts. But he didn’t seem to be doing much more than just hanging on. Why wasn’t he sucking or otherwise working the wound? Wasn’t that what vampires did? Or did they tear throats out and lap the blood?
    She shivered. God, she was so cold…
    Cold. Blood loss. Shock!
    Oh, shit, she was going into shock .
    Goddammit, he’d pierced her carotid artery. He was letting her own thundering heart pump the lifeblood out of her. A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her chest at the irony.
    Seconds later, she sagged against the building, mirth — and strength — gone. Only his weight against her held her upright.
    A violent tremor shook her. Cold. She was going to die here in this alley.
    And her shoes were ruined.
    Then, miraculously, he released her. She crumpled to the wet asphalt. Dear God, she was so cold. Was she dead?
    No, not yet. If she were dead, she wouldn’t feel the cold rain or the hot abrasion of the asphalt on her hands and knees.
    So why had he left her?
    She managed to lift her head to peer through the driving rain, searching for her assailant. There, deeper in the alley. And dear God, he was locked in combat with another man! A man who must have pulled the creature off her.
    She wanted to shout, to warn her would-be savior that he wasn’t dealing with your average thug, but her vision wobbled. Feeling oddly detached, she put a hand to her throat and it came away red. The rain quickly washed her hand clean, but a downward glance confirmed she was still bleeding. Her tan trench coat was streaked with red.
    Oh, man, she was tired. More than anything, she wanted to lie down. She wanted to just curl into herself and let the hovering blackness take her. But the man who’d tried to save her … the Good Samaritan … if she didn’t get help, he’d die.
    She pushed herself to her feet and stumbled toward the mouth of the alley, one hand pressed to her neck to try to stem her bleeding and the other pressed against the building’s wall to keep herself upright. She’d lost one shoe, so she kicked the other one off. Almost there.
    Then the world started to swim. She blinked and blinked, but the blurriness refused to clear. She found herself on the ground again, felt the asphalt burn her already scraped knees. Then the same abrasive surface kissed her cheek as she pitched face-first onto the street.
    Too late, Ainsley. As usual. You’re nobody’s savior.
     
    Delano Bowen watched the beaten vampire’s retreat long enough to be certain the creature was really leaving. He expelled his breath. Thank God. It had been close. For a moment, he’d thought he was going to have to destroy it. Black-hearted devil hadn’t wanted to give up his kill.
    Well, they’d soon see who killed whom.
    And speaking of dying, he’d better see to the woman before she succumbed to shock. He strode to the mouth of the alley where she lay crumpled on the wet asphalt. Kneeling, he rolled her over, bent close and deftly arrested her bleeding. He drew away from her to find that her eyes had fluttered open.
    “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be all right.”
    The assurance seemed good enough for her, for she slipped back into unconsciousness. He gathered her into his arms and stood.
    “Come on, Ainsley Crawford. We have work to do.”
     
    Hot sex.
    No, not just hot sex. Incredibly erotic, deliciously forbidden stranger sex.
    Ainsley knew it was a dream. Knew it wasn’t really happening. But dear God, it was good. And it felt so damned real. She could almost smell him, musky and male and incredibly arousing…
    A small sound tugged at her awareness, but she clung to sleep. She wanted to stay in the dream, wanted the