Here Comes the Vampire (Dead End Dating)
Page 15
“I had a few bruises, but nothing a good night’s sleep,” vampire sleep, that is, “hadn’t been able to fix. Did they find Rose?”
“She’s safe and sound with her dad. Although I don’t know for how long. He’s still pretty pissed and while the weres have promised justice, the BV council, too, I don’t know that they’ll be able to keep him from doing something on his own. All we can do is keep an eye on him and hope.” Silence descended for a few long moments, before he added, “I see Remy’s here.” He motioned to the black Porsche parked at the curb.
I nodded. “We were just tying up loose ends.” I caught and held his gaze. “We’re getting an annulment. The commitment’s over. It never should have happened in the first place. If I hadn’t been so drunk, I never would have done such a thing. Ever.”
“I know that,” he said with a conviction that surprised me.
“You do?”
“I trust you, Lil. I trust us. That’s why I can’t understand why you didn’t call and tell me about it right when it happened.”
“I was afraid.”
“Because you don’t trust me.”
And there it was. I hadn’t been afraid of Ty, so much as I’d been afraid of myself. Afraid that I truly had cheated. Afraid that despite my desire for my own happily-ever-after, that it just wasn’t going to happen. That it couldn’t happen because I wasn’t the happily-ever-after type. I was a born vampire. Ruled by lust rather than lust. Doomed at birth to hump any and everything in sight no matter whether I wanted to or not. Stuck living my mother’s life instead of my own.
“Bullshit.” Ty’s deep voice sounded in my head a split second before he kissed me, his mouth plundering mine, his tongue plunging deep.
The kiss was thorough and desperate, and moving.
Literally.
One minute we were standing outside near the curb and the next, we were inside my office. Ash and Remy had taken a hike, and it was just me and my made vampire.
Ty closed the door, shutting out a smug looking Evie and a smiling Frankie.
And then he was kissing me and I was kissing him, and it was as if the whole commitment thing had never happened. He loved me. I felt it in the way he touched me, even if he didn’t say it at that moment, and it was enough to make me forget all about the fear buried deep inside of me.
That he would say the words. Eventually. Hopefully.
No, I forgot everything except this moment, this vampire, this.
Hot delicious make-up sex. Yum.
#
I held up the DVD. “This is the last one,” I told Ty when he walked into my apartment.
It was three weeks since I’d called off the commitment reception and broken the news to my folks that they wouldn’t be getting a baby Jacqueline anytime soon. My mother was pissed and no longer talking to me. My dad was neck deep in a legal battle—he’d snagged Viola in his bear trap and she was now suing him for assault. He, in turn, was suing her for trespassing.
And all was right with the Marchette clan.
Ty slid off his duster and sank dteror aown on the sofa next to me. “And?”
I shrugged. “I thought we could watch it together.” It had been three weeks since we’d done it at my office. And in my bedroom. And my shower. And the fire escape in back of my building.
Don’t ask.
Three weeks of Ty loving me and me worrying about the truth that still haunted me. Did I or didn’t I?
“We should watch it together,” I told him. “Then we’ll know for sure. You’ll know.”
He eyed me. “What happened—or didn’t happen—in that elevator has nothing to do with us. I know you love me, Lil.” His gaze darkened. “And I love you. And this,” he took the DVD from my hand, “has nothing to do with that.” And then he crushed the round disc in his strong fingers. The DVD fractured and broke, littering the floor at our feet.
I blinked against the sudden rush of tears, but they spilled over anyway. I’d wanted him to love me regardless, to declare that love, and here it was. He’d said it time and time again over the past week, but the DVD proved it beyond a doubt.
He caught one drop and stared at it as if he couldn’t quite believe it was real. “You’re really something, you know that?”
“No,” I leaned over and touched my lips to his. “You’re the one who’s really something. Something wonderful.”
Okay, so like I’d pict
ured this moment in my girliest fantasies a thousand times over. Ty would drop to his knees, he’d pull out a big gonzo rock and then murmur the one question I’d been waiting my entire afterlife to hear.
But at that particular moment, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t on his knees, or that there was no gonzo rock—though I did want one eventually—or that he wasn’t the one who actually voiced the question. My gaze locked with his. “Will you marry me?”
A smile curved his sensuous lips. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
EPILOGUE
“This is the best baby shower ever,” Mandy declared when I handed her the massive diaper cake that Shirley had put together for me.
While baby showers weren’t her specialty, she’d been desperate to fund her face lift since I’d cancelled my reception to Remy, and the order for all the wedding party dresses. I’d paid for the wedding dress (what? I couldn’t kill her dreams completely), half of which was now lining Killer’s travel bag. The other half?
I eyed the frilly tablecloth sitting center stage in the banquet room of the Fairfield Country Club. A pair of scissors and a few yellow bows and, viola, the dress had been re-purposed for something besides ruining my afterlife.
“And this one’s for you,” I handed Nina One her own diaper cake, this one decked out in various shades of blue because, of course, she was most certainly having a boy on account of my brother Rob was so masculine and virile and... um, yeah. My ma’s idea.
She still wasn’t talking to me (thank you, thank you, thank you), but she had no problem communicating via e-mail and text.
“But what if it’s a girl,” Nina asked. “What will I do with all of this?”
“Don’t say that,” my mother piped in from right beside her. “You have to think positive thoughts.”
“I doubt a little negativity is going to change the sex of an eight month old fetus, Ma.”
“That just goes to show what some people know,” she declared to the room because, Damien forbid, she speak directly to me. “Why, Harriet’s daughter’s daughter was having a boy and she spent the two weeks before the delivery watching a chick flick marathonteror she speak. What do you think happened?” She eyed Nina.
“She overdid it on the popcorn?”
“She had a girl. Which is why you need to visualize that beautiful, healthy, virile baby boy.”
“I’m visualizing,” Mandy said from the other sofa.
“Not you, dear,” my mother told her. “It only works on vampires.”
“But my baby is part vampire.”
“Then the best you can hope for is half a penis. Give it up,” she told Mandy. “We all know it’s a girl.”
“Thankfully,” I told my sister-in-law, handing her a frilly pink blanket with the Chanel logo in the corner. “A special gift from Auntie Lil. To tide her over until she’s old enough for me to take her shopping.”
“You’re the best, Lil.” Gratitude gleamed in Mandy’s gaze. “I hope you know that this is nothing compared to the shower we’ve got planned for you in a few months.” Mandy motioned to the massive ring on my left hand.
Ty had given me the two carat platinum solitaire just a few days after my impromptu proposal, and a dozen text messages asking him if he really, really wanted to marry me.
What? I may be a super Vamp, but I had insecurities like anyone else, especially when it came to the vampire of my dreams.
He’d handed me the ring, kissed me within an inch of my afterlife, and then spent the rest of the night proving how utterly irresistible I was.
hopping addiction.
“You’ve done so much for all of us,” Mandy went on, motioning to Nina One and Nina Two who sat nearby texting Wilson about fertility cycles. They were planning one of their own and, with any luck, it would happen very soon. “It’s time to for us to give back.” Mandy smiled. “It’s your turn at a happily-ever-after.”
Finally.
“I don’t feel so good,” Nina One piped up from the sofa. “I think I drank too much blood.”
“Nonsense,” my mother waved a hand. “Vampires don’t get indigestion. It’s called labor.”
Okay, so maybe my turn would have to wait just a little longer.
About the Author
Bestselling author Kimberly Raye has had fi
fty-five novels published, two of them prestigious RITA Award finalists. Romantic Times BOOK Reviews has nominated her books for several Reviewer’s Choice awards, as well as a career achievement award. Her bestselling DEAD END DATING series was optioned by Disney for a TV pilot. She writes contemporary fiction for Harlequin’s Blaze line, as well as funny, sexy novels for Amazon’s Montake Romance. Kim lives deep in the heart of the Texas Hill Country with her family. She loves Diet Dr. Pepper, chocolate, The Voice, alpha males (especially vampires) and chocolate. Kim also loves to hear from readers. You can visit her online at www.kimberlyraye.com.
A Note From the Author…
If you enjoyed seeing Lil’s almost happily-ever-after, be sure to check back to see her go all the way to the altar with her bounty hunting steady and find a bride for hot, hunky demon Ash Prince. That is, if she doesn’t find herself the victim of the Devil himself who isn’t about to sit idly by and let his oldest son marry the wrong woman.
There are real wedding bells in the air as the adventure contteror a hapinues!
More Lil coming soon...
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR...