Knight Edition Read online

  Knight Edition

  Delilah Devlin

  Copyright © 2015 Delilah Devlin

  Kindle Edition

  Sidney Coffey, Seattle’s “News at Nine” girl, uncovers the scoop of a lifetime and her ticket into serious journalism. The only problem is—without proof—no one’s going to believe the victims of recent gang killings are in fact “undead” and vampires!

  With her gut telling her there’s an even bigger story lurking beneath the surface, she decides to beard a reclusive vampire master in his den for an interview. But meeting the master only complicates things. For a woman with a voracious sexual appetite, the tall, dark and gloomy vamp proves an irresistible challenge.

  When a reporter trespasses on his estate, Navarro is at first amused then annoyed that the little baggage is close to putting together the pieces of a dangerous plot involving an old enemy and a group of murdered geneticists. To keep her safe, Navarro issues an invitation he won’t let her refuse.

  Note: This book was previously published as Uncovering Navarro but has been revised and expanded.

  For more Night Fall Series stories, watch for these titles:

  Silent is the Knight

  Sm{B}itten

  Truly, Madly…Deadly

  Knight in Transition

  Wolf in Plain Sight

  Night Fall on Dark Mountain

  A Knight Living Dangerously

  From the Author

  To those of you who’ve read me before—hello, friends! To new readers, welcome to my world!

  After writing Sm{B}itten, I had wanted to write Navarro’s story for a long time—well, since his first appearance in that story. I had the sense that he was very reserved, but craved connection. He was also very jaded.

  The problem was finding just the right heroine. If I could have planned the story, I would have thought his would be very dark with Navarro facing an old adversary—perhaps the woman who turned him hundreds of years ago. But that decision wasn’t mine to make.

  I don’t just decide to write a book about something. I wait for the first scene to come to me. After several months without working on the series, I was really wondering whether the adventure was over. But then there was this pesky reporter—not the brightest watt—but so stubborn she’d make Simon Cowell look indecisive. And she was trying to break into a vampire’s den. The first scene with her falling from the brick wall all the way to her “wardrobe malfunction” rolled in my head like an old movie reel in a theater.

  It shot the hell out of my dark prince story.

  Once the scene presented itself, I was faced with a dilemma. I write erotic romance, but Navarro isn’t a man who’s led by his manparts. So how could I add the sensual intensity I enjoy writing? If Navarro was reserved, my heroine had to be a very busy girl. She also wouldn’t be the kind of girl waiting to find her prince. She’d be out there doing lots of test runs! So number one, I needed to show how fast and loose she played it. I also felt like this story would be more closely tied to the first book in the series than any other, so I placed my heroine, Sidney Coffey, in the first scene of my first book—but in Knight Edition you’re seeing that first scene from a whole new perspective. I really liked how that all worked out, and I can’t claim responsibility for any cleverness. The characters wrote themselves their own happy ending.

  I love hearing from readers, and have a very active blog and Facebook friend page. I run contests, talk about my favorite TV shows, what I collect, what drives me crazy. I tend to ramble a bit. I’m doing it right now. But if you’d like to learn more about me and what I’m doing or writing about, be sure to check out the “About Delilah Devlin” page after the story.

  And if you enjoy this story, please consider leaving a review on your favorite retail site or simply tell a friend. Readers do influence other readers. We have to trust someone to tell us whether we’ll have fun when we open a new story!

  Sincerely,

  Delilah Devlin

  Visit www.DelilahDevlin.com for more titles and release dates and subscribe to Delilah’s newsletter at newsletter.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Book

  The Night Fall Series

  From the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About Delilah Devlin

  Excerpt from Night Fall on Dark Mountain

  Chapter One

  ‡

  Moses Brown pretended not to notice the slim figure skulking in the shadow of the trees. He’d just stepped outside to clear his nostrils when he’d spotted her pale, platinum hair. He’d figured she’d show up. Probably slept with a police scanner next to her bed. When she edged around the tree where the tape was tied, he pursed his lips, waiting…

  The moment she tiptoed toward the porch, he walked softly behind her, ready to have some fun. “Sid!” he bellowed, making her jump. “Get that cute, little tail of yours behind the yellow tape, now!” Moses Brown bit back a grin at the look of pure irritation that crossed Sidney P. Coffey’s face when she turned.

  “Hi there, Moses,” she said, arching a pale brow. “Long time, no see.” At his stern glare, she ducked back under the crime scene tape and turned, taking a moment to pull the white cuffs of her shirt from below the edges of her leather jacket sleeves.

  She was stalling. Moses could almost see the gears turning over in her head. The woman didn’t know when to give up.

  When she met his gaze again, a smile was plastered on her face. “By the way, congratulations on the promotion, detective. The new suit makes your shoulders look even broader.”

  He slipped under the tape to stand in front of her and narrowed his eyes. The only time she wasted a second on small talk was when she wanted something—bad. “Sid, you’re not gettin’ inside that house.”

  Her blue eyes widened. “Do you think I was trying to—”

  “Uh huh. Don’t give me that Miss Innocent look. I know you, sweetheart.”

  Her eyebrows rose, and her sexy mouth formed a pout. “Not even for an old buddy, like me?”

  Moses folded his arms over his chest. “Old fuck buddy—let’s keep that straight.”

  She huffed, and her eyebrows drew together in a disgruntled frown. “That sounds so crass.”

  “I’m just repeating what you told me, baby.”

  “Well, I was only being honest.”

  That was the thing he liked about her best—beyond her slim body and cute tush. She didn’t mince her words. A man knew exactly where he stood.

  She was also the only woman he knew who could keep a secret. Even though they often stood on opposite sides of the tape—him a cop, her a reporter—he could trust her. If he told her something couldn’t make the evening news, she kept the tip close to her chest. Her soft, curvy chest.

  She nodded toward the house, lights ablaze as the forensics team scoured it for clues. “How ’bout I promise to keep out of sight—”

  He shook his head. “You know damn well the chief’d have my ass in a sling if I let you in there.”

  “But it’s such a fine ass,” she purred. Her glance gave him a once over that left his skin burning.

  He straightened and dropped his voice, “And don’t you know it.”

  Her smile was genuine this time. “Maybe you need to refresh my memory.” Her gaze slipped over his shoulder again. “What’s going on in there?”

  “You weren’t listening to your scanner?”

  “You know I was.” She wrinkled her nose. “Come on, give!
A triple homicide? Who was it? More teenagers bite it?”

  The little lady was too bright for her own good. This time she was dead wrong, but her instincts weren’t far off. He schooled his face into a mask. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Not now anyway, huh? You know, the police aren’t going to be able to keep this killing spree under wraps much longer. People are going to put two and two together. When they do, your chief’s fanged friends won’t be able to hide in the shadows.” She sidled up closer. “Later, maybe? We haven’t talked in a long time.”

  Moses could feel his defenses crumble. Her fine blonde hair shone bright as sunshine under the street lamp. Her flowery perfume tugged at his cock. He slipped his hand in his pocket and handed her his key. “I could be a while, sugar.”

  “Just wake me up.” She sauntered past him, deliberately rubbing her jean-clad thigh against him.

  He watched her hips sway as she walked away, until she turned the corner of the street. “Moses,” he muttered to himself, “what the hell do you think you’re doin’? That little woman’s gonna wring you like a dishrag.”

  *

  Sidney heard the creak of the apartment door as it opened. With a satisfied grin, she settled back against the satiny comforter.

  Moses hadn’t made her wait long after all. And soon she’d get her scoop—after a little play, of course.

  Of all her recent fuck buddies, Moses was her favorite by far. His appetite for sex matched hers. Best of all, he didn’t cling, didn’t make more of her sharing his covers like some did. He knew the score—knew she liked her sex as most men did. Dirty, nasty—and often.

  For her, sex was a purely physical release. An addiction she craved like some women craved chocolate. She ached with need. Already her nipples beaded, and her pussy oozed cream. Just the thought of his large cock sliding inside her had her blood humming in her veins.

  To ease the ache between her legs, she slipped a hand between her thighs and stroked her pussy.

  Moses pushed open the bedroom door. “Couldn’t wait for me before you started the party?” His generous lips were stretched into a grin.

  Glad she’d left the lamp atop the nightstand on, Sidney smiled and opened her legs so he could watch her play with herself. “I’m just priming the pump, honey.”

  He hadn’t wasted any time himself. His dark chest was bare. His hands were already busy shoving his pants down muscled thighs. His cock sprang from confinement, huge and veined.

  “Baby, you know I got a terrible thirst.” His dark gaze smoldered as he watched her fingertips slide into her wet slit.

  “I was counting on that.” She dipped two fingers inside, swirled them in her juices, then she painted her nipples.

  He strode to the end of the bed and crawled onto the mattress, his expression taut. His hands encircled her ankles, and with a quick movement, jerked her legs wider apart.

  Sidney yelped, but thrilled to his sheer physicality.

  His face came down between her legs, and he made a growling sound as he sucked her lips into his mouth.

  She hissed air between her teeth and lifted her hips, eager to accept his sensual kiss.

  “Oh man, you know I missed the taste of you, girl,” he said, rolling his face in her pussy. His large hands skimmed up her inner thighs, and his fingers spread her labia.

  “Oh, Christ,” Sidney moaned. “Eat me, Moses.” Her hands smoothed over the crown of his shaved head, and her fingers curved around his ears.

  His tongue lashed out and rimmed her opening, licking as deeply as he could reach along her channel walls while the rough pads of his fingers tugged and massaged her pussy.

  Sidney squeezed her eyes shut at the delicious sensations—his tongue caressing her sensitive flesh, his fingers now pinching the hood guarding her clitoris.

  He sucked her lips into his mouth again and let them go. “If I wasn’t hard as a rock, I’d spend hours here.”

  “Just like a man,” she teased, breathless. “Full of regrets and blaming his cock.”

  “Rain check?” He kissed her inner thigh and looked up her body, his expression unrepentant.

  “All right, lover. But you have to fuck me like you mean it.”

  “You’re sassy when you’re horny.” He grinned. “Turn over—I promise to give you everything you got comin’.”

  Just as eager to get to the rough stuff, Sidney rolled to her belly and came up on her knees. She spread them wide on the slippery comforter and tilted her ass up to receive his cock.

  Moses’s hands curved around her waist, and he jerked her higher. “I’m gonna make you howl like a wolf.”

  “Promises, promises.” Her words ended on a moan as the crown of his massive sex eased past her entrance.

  Moses pressed forward, pulsing as he stretched her to accommodate his size. “Baby, you’re tight. Ain’t had a brother in a while, huh?”

  “No one fills your…shoes,” she gasped, wriggling backward to take him the rest of the way inside. Her arms trembled as she tried to hold herself up, but her vagina was already quivering and spasming around his cock.

  Finally seated with his groin snug against hers, Moses leaned over her back and hugged her tight. “Oh, damn! You ready to be fucked to hard?”

  She fisted her hands in the bedding and grinned. “Do the wild thing, baby!”

  *

  As Sidney drove to the estate nestled in the hills overlooking Seattle, she fought fatigue. After stopping at her apartment for a quick shower and change, she had only a few precious hours before the sun rose.

  Her body was still warm, pliant, and ached deliciously from Moses Brown’s rough play.

  Their conversation afterward had been brief. With his eyelids drooping and his deep voice purring in her ear like a contented cat’s, he’d finally given her the lowdown on the latest homicides.

  The dead men inside the nondescript house had been savaged, their necks laid open, their bodies drained of blood. Vampires. No doubt about it.

  But something about the choice of victims niggled at Sidney’s mind. Forty-something scientists meeting over dinner? Not an obvious target for creatures that tended to roam the streets seeking younger, more tender morsels.

  Not that she fully understood vampires’ appetites and habits. Hell, she hadn’t even known they existed until a few short months ago.

  Back then, she’d been following a trail of missing teenagers taken out by gang violence—or so the police reports stated. Never satisfied with the official accounts, she’d done a little digging.

  First, she’d found notices posted in the obits of the Seattle Times for rosaries, eulogies, and remembrance ceremonies—but the bodies were never presented for viewing, and stranger still, she couldn’t find a single instance of an actual burial. The few parents willing to speak to her had been told the kids’ bodies were dumped in Elliott Bay and never recovered.

  Next, her curiosity had led her to Moses Brown, a name that appeared again and again in the police reports. A uniformed cop at the time, he’d worked the areas where the teenagers tended to disappear. She’d hounded the man, stalking him to his hangouts and to his apartment door. She’d even joked with him that her middle initial “P” stood for “Persistence”.

  Then one night, following a tip from one of the victim’s friends, she’d attended a Halloween party at a trendy nightclub called The Cavern, and she’d discovered the truth for herself.

  The club was near the docks in West Seattle, situated among a shabby row of brick buildings. Its violet neon sign beckoned from the street; techno music pounded from the open door.

  Once inside The Cavern, she’d tugged at the hem of her French Maid costume, feeling exposed and conspicuously older than the majority of the revelers. For a Halloween party, few of the young people in attendance actually wore costumes—if one discounted the dime store fangs.

  “Well, if it isn’t Sidney Coffey—the ‘News at Nine’ girl.”

  She jumped at the sound of the masculine vo
ice drawling so close to her ear and whirled.

  The man in front of her was tall and lean, dressed in a black leather jacket and pants. With his pale skin, longish dark hair, and porcelain-smooth vamp dentures—he looked like Dracula gone biker.

  “Do I know you?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the music.

  “Not yet.” His dark gaze swept down her body in a slow, sensual perusal.

  No prude, Sidney could out-ogle most lounge lizards—but something about the predatory way this man loomed over her raised her hackles. She flashed him a small, tight smile. “Not ever.”

  His grin reminded her of a crocodile’s toothy grimace. “We’ve started this conversation in the wrong place.” He held out his hand. “Name’s Nicky Powell.”

  Although he was handsome, Sidney had reluctantly laid her palm in his hand to shake it. “You already know my name.” She lifted her chin in challenge and tried to pull away her hand.

  He held her tight, the pressure just shy of cracking her knuckles. “You’re a bit spiny. Delicious.” He drew out the words like a man who meant to savor a treat. Then he bent over her hand and licked her skin.

  Sidney blinked and tugged in earnest. “Okay, Vlad—enough with the tasting. Let me go!”

  Instead of heeding her request, he followed her arm upward, licking and scraping his teeth along her skin, raising goose bumps and her heart rate. However repulsive he’d seemed at the start, her body started to quiver the higher his tongue caressed.

  When he reached the cuff of her short sleeve, he looked up into her eyes.

  Sidney swayed toward him, drawn to his bottomless gaze. She wet her lips, anticipating a kiss—

  “Uh huh, sugar. How many times I gotta tell you to leave off the rum ’til I get here?”

  A strong arm circled her waist, and Sidney found herself glancing up into Moses Brown’s chocolate gaze.

  Nicky released her arm and stepped back. “Officer Brown, how nice to see you.”