Immortal Hearts of San Francisco
Susan Griscom
Published in the United States by Amber Glow Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
Tempted by a Vampire is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2015 by Susan Griscom
Amber Glow Books
www.susangriscom.com
Edited by Michael Leah Olson
Cover Design by Susan Griscom
Cover Model: Weston Bouchér
Cover Photos: www.Romancenovelcovers.com
For Harry
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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
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Also by Susan Griscom
Acknowledgments
About The Author
Chapter One
Cian
The city seemed almost too calm for a Saturday night. Something major was about to happen. My bones twitched and I grew antsy as a sentience floated through my mind, warning of change. I was coming off a three-day work-a-thon. We all were. “We all” being the band—my brother Lane, Gage, Elvis, and myself. Work binges were frequent occurrences when we got in these creative moods, but this time, it left me feeling a bit enervated.
“Ari, pull over,” I growled with unease at our driver.
“What’s up?” Lane frowned from the limo seat across from me.
“I need some air.”
“You feeling okay?” he asked before downing a shot of Johnny Walker Black. We always kept a bottle in the limo. The booze helped calm the nerves. No matter how long we’d been doing this, the jitters always showed up.
“Yeah, I just need a bit of refreshing.”
Lane smiled. “Be safe, don’t get yourself mugged,” my brother warned then sat back, chuckling as he downed another shot.
“Make it a quickie!” Gage laughed. “We go on in forty minutes.”
“Just a quickie,” I agreed as I shut the door.
I walked past a small corner store and headed up a hill where rows of townhomes graced each side of the street—each one a different color but with similar architecture. As I roamed the north shore neighborhood, the sound of a cable car bell chimed from another, not-too-distant block.
A door in one of the homes opened. I hung back and waited, watching as a young woman came out of an apartment building. A twenty-something beauty with long, blonde hair and a straight nose set between high cheekbones. Her long, shapely legs extended from a very short, black-and-white-flowered skirt. A large, chartreuse purse swung from her arm. Exactly what I needed to tame the heightened levels of testosterone soaring through my body, tightening my balls. Not to mention sate my need for sustenance. There were plenty of homeless lurking around the city—particularly in the park—that could have done fine, but I didn’t go for those. I liked my victuals clean, exactly like this delectable morsel.
I stepped out of the shadows as she came down the steps to the sidewalk. “Excuse me,” I said, inching closer. She smiled. Mmm, a very kissable mouth.
“Can I help you?”
“Walk with me,” I commanded, staring into her wide, brown eyes as I took her palm in mine. She easily capitulated, succumbing to my compulsion, and continued to smile as we strolled hand in hand down the hill as if we were a young couple in love. We turned into an alley a short distance from the home she’d just left.
I didn’t kill, and I only took what I needed.
“May I kiss your neck?” I asked, wanting to hear her approval. It made the seduction more enjoyable to me.
“Of course.”
I licked at her vein and pressed tiny kisses along the length of her throat. Then I skimmed my hand up along her inner thigh. “May I fuck you?”
“Please.”
She’d been easily compelled, affording me great pleasure, the way I liked it. And while part of me felt a little bit guilty because she wasn’t fully aware, I knew that she would be equally pleasured. I would care for her as much as I could. Though, it was impossible for me to force something like this on someone unless they secretly already wanted it.
I ripped off the flimsy panties she wore and unfastened my pants, letting them fall to my knees. I didn’t relish fucking in alleys, but I didn’t have time to take her back to the mansion where I lived with my brother and bandmates.
I plunged into her sweet den of wickedness, thrusting hard. She gasped. My hips drove forward again. She took me in as far as I could go, uttering a pleasured moan. Perfect. I didn’t believe in tormenting my prey. If anything, I wanted them to enjoy the experience as much as I did.
“This won’t hurt,” I promised then pierced my fangs into her neck, sinking them deep and letting her sweet nectar flow into my mouth.
She came almost immediately as the titillating sensation of having her blood sucked gently from her vein cast her over the edge.
I didn’t want to drain her, nor did I want to hurt her in any way. When I was sure she’d climaxed at least three times, I pumped into her hard and released, letting my essence explode into her as her blood filled me with renewed strength and energy. I stopped sucking and licked the wounds closed with the tip of my tongue.
I tugged my pants up and smoothed her skirt down.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome.” She smiled.
I straightened a few strands of her hair that stuck up from where I’d pressed her against the wall. “You won’t remember any of this. You will remember spending a wonderful evening with a date. Experiencing the greatest pleasure imaginable. And you will recall that you were very tired and decided to return home early, take a shower, and head to bed.” She blinked, the glazed state of compulsion still evident in her eyes.
She yawned. “I feel like I could sleep for days,” she mumbled to herself as she headed out of the alley toward the sidewalk in front of her apartment.
I waited until she’d turned the corner and then I strolled out of the alley toward the club where we performed, passing a few small restaurants and bars along the way. I felt a bit better, but I was still on edge.
As I rounded the corner in front of Club Royal, my eyes caught and held the penetrating stare of what had to be a goddess straight from heaven. Through the window of my favorite small, but quaint
Italian restaurant, the gaze of a gorgeous and well-toned woman followed me as I walked. She sat with another, sipping a martini. Her unpretentious demeanor was alluring, and my cock twitched, immediately followed by a discontented feeling. I knew that the brief encounter a few moments ago had been nothing more than an aphrodisiac. The temptation to stop and seduce the woman was almost overwhelming, but I didn’t have time. The guys would kick my ass if I left them to set up without me.
Chapter Two
Magdalena
Intense, sexy eyes locked with mine as they slipped around the corner of the building along with the hot body of the man they belonged to. I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone so beautiful before.
This was bad news.
San Francisco just might become a fleeting memory of something in my past. If Kellen ever realized what goodies of the male variety lurked around the city, he’d surely insist that I move to Sacramento to be closer to him. We’d decided on six months. I’d move to the city to pursue my career, and he’d move to Sacramento to pursue his. Seeing each other on weekends whenever time allowed. Wouldn’t you know, the weekend Vanessa and I decided to move here, Kellen had a charity event to attend for the mayor, leaving us girls to do all the heavy lifting and unpacking.
I sighed, missing him. Wishing he’d been able to get out of the event.
Seeing the gorgeous guy outside had made me feel lonely, wanting. If I knew what was best for me, I’d forgo the drink and head home to unpack the gazillion boxes practically littering every inch of our new apartment.
“Vanessa, really, I think we should go home and get the place put together,” I said as I stood.
“We can’t leave, Mags.” Vanessa tugged my arm and yanked my small, five-foot-two-inch frame back into the chair I’d been sitting on. A very uncomfortable chair I might add. The kind with little hollow squares made of metal and no cushion to soften the seat. I didn’t exactly possess the plumpest rear end in the world, and I was positive that the back of my thighs resembled a waffle iron, indented with ugly squares that would take hours to go away. Those wire chairs were murder on thighs, especially while wearing a mini skirt.
“Really, Vanessa, I think we’ve had enough.”
“We can’t go home yet. This is our first night in the city. Home, here in the city. Doesn’t that sound great?” Vanessa hummed out the word “home” as though she’d never had one before. We’d both come from middle-class families in the Bay Area. Vanessa and I had been college roommates at Chico State and had been planning to move to San Francisco ever since our freshman year. Now that we’d graduated and had both managed, by some miracle, to score top-paying jobs in the city—mine in journalism, hers in graphic design—our dream had finally become a reality.
“It sounds wonderful,” I agreed wholeheartedly.
“We didn’t move to San Francisco so we could sit in our apartment every night. It’s only seven-thirty,” Vanessa continued.
“No, of course not. I know. It’s just been a long day moving all those boxes in and exhaustion has caught up with me. I’m more tired than I thought I would be. I’d love to just go back and put my feet up. Maybe relax and take a long bubble bath in that big, jetted bathtub we have. We’re going to be living here. We can come out another night.”
“But we’re celebrating.” She pouted. “And it’s Saturday night. Besides, we haven’t eaten yet. Plus, I want to go to that club we passed by earlier. The one that has the live band. I was hoping that you’d loosen up a bit after that martini. Why are you so uptight anyway? It’s not like you. Is it because Kellen didn’t want you to move out here?”
Kellen, my boyfriend for the past two years, had found an awesome job in Sacramento working at the mayor’s office. Kellen Slade wanted to be a politician. His dream was to be President of the United States. He had high ambitions, to say the least; much higher than my own, which were, in my opinion, a nine point five on a scale of one to ten. But Kellen Slade’s aspirations blew the top off the charts, and usually left me gasping for breath. Vanessa was right, though; Kellen had been less than agreeable about me moving to San Francisco. In fact, he’d been downright pissed off, and had threatened to end our relationship. It had taken hours and hours of coaxing with promises that we’d see each other on weekends whenever possible to get him to agree. He’d finally consented to a six-month trial period. He’d move to Sacramento, and I’d move to San Francisco. We’d be a short hour and twenty-seven-minute drive apart on a good day without traffic. “It has nothing to do with Kellen. I’m just tired.”
“Well, I’m not going home yet. You can go, but I’m not spending my first Saturday night in the city watching some lame movie on TV. Besides, we got all dressed up tonight.”
She was right, we had. She wore her new black dress. It was trimmed with black lace and had an open lace mid-drift. The décolletage dipped way down close to the top of the lace in the middle. She’d even curled her long, pink-tipped blonde hair, and the way it flowed over her shoulders with the tips dipping into the valley between her breasts was so pretty. Super sexy. My dress wasn’t quite as risqué, but equally sexy in my opinion. The silver, silky material shimmered and required a strapless demi-bra that boosted the cleavage the dress revealed. It was very form-fitting and hugged my body maybe a little too tightly. Both of our dresses were extremely short, much shorter than I normally felt comfortable in, but I’d bought it anyway at V’s insistence. Our dresses had been purchased last week, right after we’d signed the papers for the lease of the apartment, and bought specifically for our first night out in the city.
Vanessa knew I’d cave. What kind of person would I be if I left my best friend alone at a restaurant in San Francisco on our first night living here, to then walk home by herself after a night of drinking and dancing? Too many horrible scenarios came flooding into my mind. Anyone walking home alone after midnight—especially someone who possessed a curvy body like Vanessa’s—was sure to be rape bait for some scuzzy pervert.
So, I relented.
“All right, all right. We’ll check out the band, but please don’t wake me up in the morning before twelve noon. Okay?”
“Deal. Two more dirty martinis,” Vanessa said to the waiter as he passed by our table. He nodded with a smile that could melt the snowcaps off Mount Everest. “Extra dirty,” she added. “God, he’s adorable, isn’t he?”
I nodded, but I couldn’t get my mind off of the sexy man who’d captured my attention a while ago.
We drank the martinis and giggled through a shared plate of calamari then headed down the street to the club.
On our way, we passed by a sidewalk sign that proclaimed “Psychic Readings” with an arrow pointing to a door.
“I think we need to check this out. Don’t you?” V said.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Mags, stop being so…Mags.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Sometimes you can be too…safe. C’mon, let’s live a little and be adventurous.” Her green eyes gleamed with excitement. How could I refuse?
I rolled my eyes. “Okay.” What harm could there be? I didn’t believe in psychics or even magic. It was probably just some little old lady who needed a few extra bucks to get her through until her next social security check came in, sitting at a round table with a black cloth draped over it. I could help out with that. After all, I had a brand new, top-paying career at Channel Seven News starting on Monday.
Vanessa opened the door. A long, narrow stairway leading up to the second floor was on the left, and another one led down. Another sign, “Madam Fontaine’s Psychic Readings – Downstairs” was posted on the wall.
The stairway was quite ominous and creepy. Very apropos, I thought to myself as I grabbed Vanessa’s hand and let her lead the way. Worn, frayed carpet edged our path as we made our way down the steep, dark steps.
Another small, black and white sign on the door read, “Come In.”
Vanessa looked at me and turned
the knob. The door creaked as she opened it.
Five seconds later, a woman—nothing like the little old lady who needed some extra cash that I’d pictured—walked into the room. She wore a low-cut top, revealing some awesome tattoos of birds and music. Her dark hair sparkled with trinkets and flowed over bare shoulders. More colorful tattoos decorated each of her arms; some were very pretty. If I had to guess, I’d say she was about thirty-two.
“Welcome, I’m Tessa Fontaine.”
Tessa was tall, hot, and beautiful. I suddenly felt very self-conscious of my squatty shortness. That happened a lot whenever I was around tall women. I’d become used to Vanessa, but always seemed to get a little overwhelmed whenever there was more than one tall lady around me at the same time. My high heels didn’t provide as much height as I’d like.
“I’m Vanessa, and this is Mags. Maggie.” Vanessa shoved me in front of her. I gave her a sarcastic thanks-a-whole-hell-of-a-lot-friend glance and smiled timidly at Madam Fontaine.
Tessa took my hand. “Come with me, Maggie. Or is Maggie short for something else? I will tell you everything you need to know.”
“I…uh, I don’t need to know anything…” V’s hands shoved at my shoulders, coaxing me to follow Tessa, and I tripped over my own two feet. Somehow, I managed to catch myself without flailing uncontrollably and slamming into the psychic’s equally tattooed bare back. “And it’s just Maggie.” We didn’t really need to go into all the history surrounding the name Magdalena, or the fact that my parents thought it would be sweet to give their little girl a designation that meant rare beauty. Something I’d always thought I had a difficult time living up to.
“Please, sit.” Tessa pointed to a chair positioned at a small round table covered with a black, satiny material. At least my ideas of that turned out to be correct.
Madam Fontaine—Tessa—sat across from me, and Vanessa took a seat by the wall behind me.
Tempted by a Vampire (Immortal Hearts of San Francisco Book 1) Page 1