Because as much as she wanted to save him, she knew the hunger he’d soon experience would be far worse than death.
She knew, but she turned him anyway because she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t watch him die. She couldn’t watch anyone die.
Never again.
Fast forward to an Apache raid. Or what was left of one.
She saw herself wandering through the demolished camp. The voices of the dying echoed in her ears. One man in particular called out to her. Travis. He was a farmer whose wife and three children had just been abducted. He was their only hope. He had to follow them. Save them.
But first he had to stop bleeding.
“Please,” he begged and she couldn’t resist. Not the desperation in his voice or the sweet scent curling in the air, luring her closer to his slaughtered body.
Her nostrils flared, her hunger roared, and she dipped her head. She lapped at the blood pulsing from one particular wound and awareness ripped through her. Her senses came alive, and it was as if an amplifier switched on in her head.
The whisper of the wind became a roar as it whipped through the trees. Crickets buzzed so loudly that she wanted to cover her ears. Horse hoofs thundered, and she flinched. Women pleaded and begged. Children whimpered and sniffled.
“Daddy!”
The desperate cry filled her head. A girl. Travis’s youngest.
The hungry red haze that clouded her vision faded until his broken and battered face came into sharp focus. She saw the faint laugh lines around his eyes, the tiny scar that ran along his cheekbone, the deep pores of his skin. Recognition sparked as he stared up at her, and his lips moved.
“Do it,” he rasped. “Help me. You have to.”
She didn’t. She shouldn’t. She knew that.
At the same time, she couldn’t stand the blood on her hands. The death on her conscience.
Not just Travis’s death, but that of his wife and three daughters.
The horse hoofs kept pounding the ground, fading ever so slightly with each passing second. The little girl’s voice faded, too. The crying. The pleading. The praying.
Anxiety rushed through Viv and she bared her fangs. Sinking them deep into her own wrist, she drew blood and held it to Travis’s lips, and then she gave him back the precious life that was fast spilling out all over the dusty ground.
Her past kept replaying and she saw the others. Mary. James. Walter. Francis. Ruby. Ben. Molly and Cruz. Caroline. Mitchell. Richard. Loretta.
She could see their faces, hear their anguished voices, feel their pain and suffering.
She meant to say no to each and every one of them. To satisfy her own hunger and walk away. That’s all that should have mattered. Feeding the beast inside of her.
At the same time, she couldn’t resist the tears, the fear, the desperation. And so she tried to help, to cheat death out of yet another precious life.
But while she robbed death of victory, she didn’t really save anyone. Rather, she doomed them to the hunger.
She’d doomed Garret.
Her stomach convulsed and her chest hurt and the blood kept coming, flooding the floor of the small closet. The ripe, sticky scent mingled with the smell of mothballs burned her nostrils. She held her hand to the wound and prayed for sleep. For peace.
She needed to heal. To forget.
Instead, she remembered.
Garret sprawled on the ground.
Broken.
Bleeding.
Dying.
“No!” She touched her lips to his and felt the weakness of his breath, the coldness of his skin.
One sharp slice to her neck, and her lifeblood spilled out, running in tiny rivulets down her skin, falling onto his pale lips, giving him new life all the while his old slipped away.
Slowly the color returned to his face, and his heartbeat grew strong and sure against the palm of her hand. She started to move, to leave him to heal before he opened his eyes and realized what had happened. She drew her hand away, but strong fingers clamped around hers and jerked her back down. A growl vibrated up his throat and his fangs flashed. He opened his eyes and instead of a warm chocolate, they burned a fierce, vivid violet. Her own heart catapulted with excitement, and lust rushed through her.
He turned her, pinning her to the ground.
She arched against him as he ripped her clothes away, until she felt his bare skin against her own. His hands swept up and down, touching her everywhere as he drew one nipple into his mouth and suckled her so hard that she moaned long and deep and…Ahhhhhh.
Strong, purposeful fingers found the wet heat between her legs and plunged inside. She gasped, wiggling her hips and drawing him another inch deeper…There. And there. And there.
Sensation coiled, and she felt herself winding tighter. Her hands roved over him, and she felt the bunch of his muscles as his excitement multiplied.
Her own hunger stirred, eager for a taste of the climax building inside of him. She threw her head back and arched her body, ready to feel his fangs sinking deep, and his hard erection pumping between her legs.
Sex and blood.
It was an intoxicating duo. One she’d never enjoyed with any man. Not at the same time.
But Garret was different.
Because she loved him.
Because he loved her.
Her body throbbed, and her hands trailed up and down his back, begging and pleading with him to touch her faster, harder, deeper—
The thought shattered as pain sliced through her from her collarbone, clear to her belly button. Her eyes went wide and she saw him poised above her, his hands wrapped around the sharp stake that protruded from her chest.
Blood spurted and steamed, the sound sizzling in her ears.
She opened her mouth, but her throat closed in on itself, and only a gurgle bubbled past her lips. Her gaze collided with his, and she saw the anger that burned a hot, vicious red in his eyes.
He knew the truth now, and he hated her for it.
“You did this to me,” he growled. “You.”
VIVIANA BOLTED UPRIGHT, her heart pounding.
She touched her chest, feeling only the soft cotton of her T-shirt and the warm metal of her St. Benedict medal.
No stake. No blood.
A dream.
That’s all it had been.
Just a wild, horrific nightmare.
She and Garret hadn’t made love that night, and he certainly hadn’t tried to kill her.
He’d been too busy hurting. Dying.
She forced aside the memory of his body riddled with stab wounds and glanced toward the window. Shadows pushed past the edge of the blinds, a tell-tale sign that the sun had already set.
She eased from the bed and headed for the bathroom. She didn’t bother to turn on the overhead bulb. She didn’t need to. She could see every detail of the ancient powder-blue tile, the old-fashioned sink, the small medicine cabinet. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and noted the frantic rise and fall of her chest.
She was so freaked out she was actually breathing.
Closing her eyes, she counted to ten. Until the breaths stopped coming and her hands stopped trembling.
While the dream was a far cry from reality—she hadn’t so much as kissed him that night—she had found him broken and bleeding, and she’d done her best to ease his pain.
She closed her eyes against a rush of tears and swallowed against the sudden tightening in her throat. She hadn’t meant to hurt him.
But she had no doubt he would see things much differently.
That’s why she’d left him so long ago. She’d been afraid to see the hatred in his eyes should he discover the truth.
She was still afraid.
He won’t find out.
Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter.
Cruz and Molly would catch her, and she wouldn’t fight them. The curse would end and Garret would have his humanity back.
When they caught up with her.
; She left the bathroom to double check the lock on the front door. As her hand closed over the doorknob, a strange niggling awareness worked its way up and down her spine. It was the same sensation she’d had up in Washington. When she’d been sensationalizing the Butcher’s latest handiwork and Sheriff Keller had escorted her from the crime scene.
She could still feel his strong fingertips on her arm, hear the leaves crunching beneath his boots as they’d walked down the mountain, smell the sharp scent of pine trees and fresh blood and something else…
Someone.
They were getting closer. She knew it. She felt it. But while the feeling was there, it wasn’t nearly as strong as it had been in Washington.
She double-checked the lock and headed back to the bathroom. Drawing back the shower curtain, she turned the shower on full force and stepped beneath the icy spray.
Dunking her head under the sluice of water, she closed her eyes and fought to control the frantic beating of her heart. Eventually, the tears faded. The fear started to seep away and spiral down the drain along with the ice-cold water.
By the time she stepped from the shower and reached for a fluffy towel, she’d managed to tamp down on her regret and gather her control.
Think tonight.
Think seduction.
Think Winona’s ten Do-Me-Baby commandments.
Or, at least most of them.
While she fully intended to bat her eyes and lick her lips as often as possible, she wasn’t so sure she was going to slap Garret’s ass or tickle his balls (numbers seven and eight on the list). At least not until they were already naked and in bed.
That was the goal.
To turn him on to the point that he toppled her onto the nearest horizontal surface and initiated the sex so she didn’t have to.
She’d spent an eternity being the aggressor, mesmerizing men and bending them to her will, acting rather than reacting.
No more.
Yes, she would be suggestive, seductive, inviting. But she wouldn’t make the first move. She was leaving that up to Garret.
She had to.
That’s why he’d been the first and only man to give her an orgasm. He’d been the aggressor. He’d been the one to take the initiative and approach her first—before she’d “vamped” him. He’d swept her off her feet and ravished her, and all because of his own passionate nature. Because he’d really and truly wanted her of his own free will. Unlike the others, who’d been puppets manipulated by her vamp charm.
She wanted Garret to want her again. She wanted to taste his excitement, his fervor, his passion once more because she knew it would feed her own and give her one last climax.
The thing was, she hadn’t been trying to attract him back then. It had just happened. One look and bam, he’d been over the top for her. Out of control.
But now…She would have to use everything in her mortal female power (as untried as it was) to tempt him past the point of no return.
With that thought in mind, she stashed her St. Benedict medal in her suitcase and pulled out her clothes.
She didn’t have a tank top and Daisy Duke shorts (commandment number two), so she opted for the closest thing she could find—a red silk shell and a fitted black skirt. She bypassed the undies (commandment number one), added a spritz of perfume to the inside of each thigh and her belly button (number four) and donned her outfit.
She finished with a pair of stilettos and grabbed her camera bag. She had the rest of her supplies—back-drops, lighting, extra cameras, several stands—already packed in her car. Taking one final look at the list of notes she’d taken during Winona’s class, she mentally checked off the first five commandments (the rest would have to wait until she came face-to-face with Garret) and fought down a wave of nerves.
By the time the evening ended, he would be begging her for sex.
Or so she desperately hoped.
7
GARRET WASN’T begging Viv for sex.
He wasn’t begging her for anything—because he wasn’t there.
Disappointment rushed through her, along with a burst of anxiety as she walked into the spacious machine shop that housed Skull Creek Choppers.
It was just after sunset. Shadows crowded outside the glass windows that lined the front wall facing Main Street. Fluorescent lights blazed overhead, illuminating the stainless steel work tables covered with tools. Some she recognized—screwdrivers and wrenches and pliers—but most were totally foreign to her. An assortment of saw blades covered one twelve foot surface. An industrial strength welding unit overflowed a nearby corner. A grinder and several sprayers edged the sidelines while three large work tables dominated the center of the room. On top of one sat the shiny silver skeleton of a motorcycle. On another sat a large chunk of metal that vaguely resembled a gas tank. The third table held several long strips of metal that had been cut to resemble lightning bolts. They sat next to something that looked like a large welder. It had clamps and a curved wheel.
While Viv was no expert, she would have been willing to bet the machine had something to do with shaping and molding the fenders.
Her ears perked. She tuned in to the whir of the air conditioner, the tick-tock of a nearby clock, the hum of the massive computer system that sat in a small adjacent office just to the right. Another wall of windows separated the space from the actual shop.
There was nothing else. No deep, familiar rumble of his voice or the pounding of his heart or the pulse of his blood.
Her nose twitched, and she caught a sharp whiff of oil and engine fluid. The musky mingling of rubber and exhaust. The sterile scent of industrial strength soap and disinfectant.
The place was empty, all right. Despite the lights that blazed and the door that had been left unlocked.
Then again, this was a small town with zero crime.
She knew the type, which was why she’d made it her business to stick to the big cities. For the anonymity. The throng of people. The safety.
Garret was asking for trouble settling in such a rinkydink place.
That, or he was just tired of running. Maybe he wanted to settle down and have the normalcy she’d robbed him of so long ago.
Guilt niggled at her the way it always did when she thought of the past, but she pushed it aside this time. She was through living with the regret. She was doing something about it now. She was giving back.
But first…
She cast another glance around and blew out an exasperated breath. She busied herself snapping a few pictures, desperate to calm her trembling hands and rein in the sexual frustration that whipped through her.
He would be back soon, and she would get on with the matter at hand—seducing him past the point of no return.
She was armed and ready. She’d dabbed a few drops of Winona’s Strawberry Seduction behind each ear. She’d gone over her notes another ten times before climbing out of the car. She was in full-blown seduction mode, her body quivering in anticipation, and he was MIA.
For now.
He would be back soon. He’d agreed to the date, and he’d always kept his word. He’d probably gone out for supplies or coffee or a quick bite.
The last thought stirred a rush of jealousy that made her stiffen.
She shifted her attention to the bike, eager to ignore the sudden image that popped into her head. Garret leaning over some woman, holding her, sinking his fangs deep—
She shook away the vision and reached out to trace the silver metallic skull and cross bones etched into the chopper’s rear fender. A flaming silver skull blazed on the gas tank. The seat was rounded and curved with skulls embossed on the leather. The rims were made up of a center skull with four metal-shaped “bones” for spokes. Every detail, from the skull-shaped headlight to the red cross-bone brake lights played into the theme. It was the coolest and most unusual bike she’d ever seen.
Even more, it was sexy.
It was Garret.
A tiny thrill ripped through her. Sure, it was just a
pile of metal—a motorcycle, not a man—but the man had been the one to put it together.
He’d smoothed and molded the steel. He’d attached the pieces. He’d touched and shaped and put his heart and soul into the machine to the point that she couldn’t see it and not think about him.
It looked like him—sleek and masculine and dangerous. It felt like him—hard and cool and stirring. It even smelled like him—a heady mixture of rich leather and fresh air and pure adrenaline that made her heart beat that much faster.
Before she could stop herself, she set her camera on a nearby table and hiked her skirt up. Leather met her bare bottom as she straddled the seat and awareness crackled through her. Goosebumps danced up and down her skin and her nipples pebbled.
She wiggled for a better position and sensation speared her. She gasped and caught her lip against a sharp, sweet zap of lust.
No, no, no!
The chant echoed through her head because this was not what she wanted. She’d had a zillion orgasms before, but none with a man.
Just him.
Only him.
At the same time, it felt so good, and she was so wound up. A little rocking back and forth, some wiggling side to side, and she could relieve some of the tension winding her so tight. No way would she make it through the first five minutes without doing something totally crazy. Like jump his bones the moment he walked in the door.
A disastrous move, she knew.
While he still wanted her—she’d seen it in his eyes—he didn’t want to want her. To feel the attraction. The lust.
He was still hurt. Angry. Furious.
No way would he let his guard down, stop resisting what he felt for her and simply act on it.
Not yet.
She had to get him to relax, which meant she needed to bide her time and seduce him slowly.
Right.
She was too wound up. Too close to pinning him against the nearest wall and ravishing his hot, hunky body. She needed to take the edge off.
Right here.
Right now.
She leaned forward to grasp the handlebars. Her bottom slid a scant inch across the cool seat. Leather rasped her clit and desire knifed through her. She shivered. Her vision blurred. Her ears rang. Pleasure gripped her for a long, delicious moment and she caught her bottom lip.
Love at First Bite Bundle Page 44