...Nikolai waited for Rainer to pick the lock. “Hurry up,” he urged in a hushed tone. “Someone might see us.”

“Who?” Rainer didn’t look up from where he bent over the doorknob. “All of the houses are a couple of acres apart and everyone’s lights are off. They’re all asleep.” He glanced up and in the moonlight Nikolai saw the glint of his teeth. “You worry worse than an old woman.”

“I’ll show you ‘old woman,’” Nikolai muttered.

“Yeah, I just bet you… Ah, got it.” Rainer twisted the knob and stood, pushing open the door. He looked over his shoulder at Nikolai. “Well? Come on.”

Nikolai rolled his eyes and followed his friend inside. He closed the door behind him and walked through the kitchen, following Rainer as he unerringly made his way through the darkened house.

Nothing seemed out of place. “There doesn’t appear to have been a struggle.” Nikolai stepped through the living room to the front door. He bent and looked at the deadbolt—fastened from the inside. “No evidence of a break-in. Well, at least not from the front entrance,” he qualified, since he and Rainer had just illegally entered from the rear of the house.

Rainer snorted and went down a hallway. Nikolai followed him in time to see him turn to his left and push open a door. As Nikolai entered the room he realized it was a home office—there was a large desk on one side of the room with a desktop computer and printer on a sidebar, and the monitor and keyboard sat in the center of the desk.

“If he left anything behind, it should be in here, don’t you think?” Rainer sat in the office chair. Leaning forward, he pulled the light chain on the banker’s lamp. Muted light spread over the desk and the surrounding area. He tried to open the middle drawer and frowned when it didn’t budge. “It’s locked.” With a muttered curse, he pulled out his lock-picking tools again.

Nikolai walked to a large bookcase and picked up a framed photograph. He moved back into the light and studied the picture. Adair had his arm around a petite brunette—a very beautiful woman with long dark hair and sparkling blue eyes. His heart rate increased, his gut—and his cock—tightened. He’d had this reaction to beautiful women before, but not just from their pictures. He tipped the photograph toward Rainer, “What do you think? Girlfriend?”

Rainer plopped the thin lock picks onto the top of the desk and pulled open the middle drawer. He glanced up, then stilled and looked at the photo more closely. Finally, he shook his head. “Sister, I’d say. There’s a resemblance around the eyes. And the nose.” He tilted his head to one side and held out his hand. “She’s beautiful.”

Nikolai handed him the picture.

Rainer studied the photograph in silence for a few moments, then gave it back and started rooting around in the desk drawer. He muttered a low curse. “I’m in trouble.”

Nikolai frowned and leaned over the desk, trying to see inside the drawer. “Why?”

“I’m getting a hard-on and all I’ve done is look at a damned photo.”

“Well, I’m in trouble, too.” Nikolai grimaced.

Rainer looked up. He glanced at Nikolai’s groin and pursed his lips. “We’ve gone too long without a woman, that’s what it is.”

“Or there is another possibility.”

Rainer shook his head. “Both of us? I don’t think so.”

“It’s happened before.” Nikolai headed across the room and replaced the photograph on the shelf. He squinted, reading the spines of the various books—textbooks by the looks of them—standing there.

“The last time it happened was way before our time.” Rainer shut the drawer and Nikolai heard the slide of wood on wood as he opened another one.

“I understand that.” Nikolai turned and looked at him. “Almost two hundred years before our time. But still, it’s possible.”

Rainer leaned back in the chair. “You think that you and I, the two of us together, have recognized a shared mate? Not by scent, but from a photo?”

“All right then. Tell me this—when was the last time you got aroused just by looking at a picture? A picture that wasn’t a naked woman in a girly magazine,” he qualified.

Rainer remained silent.

Nikolai raised his eyebrows and waited.