“Please put me down,” she said. “Or else do a U-ey.”
“Okay. But just so you know, I like the feel of you in my arms. And I’m not all that displeased with the whipped cream thing.”
“It’s a graveyard, Christian. There are coffins down deep under this lawn. That kind of thing is fantasy prohibitive.”
Christian stopped, and set her on her feet. Though her heels sank deeply into the spongy grass, Veronica refused to reach for a marble slab for support.
“You have something against coffins?” Christian asked.
“You don’t?” she volleyed, swinging her arms to stay upright, and still tilting backwards awkwardly.
“I spend a good amount of time around them, Veronica.”
“Don’t you mean in them? I’ve been to the agency, remember?”
Big arm circle here to right herself.
“Then you read the contract. The fine print,” Christian said.
“You bet your gluteals I did. Escort. Coffin guy. Looks to die for. Nothing about sex in a graveyard.”
Veronica clapped a hand over her mouth, which threw her off-balance again, and nearly out of her shoes. Cursing Prada for her spiked heels, she then cursed herself for getting into this mess. She cursed Charlene. She cursed just to curse.
Christian reached out a hand to steady her, politely ignoring all the four letter words.
“Now I know why you wear black,” he said.
She glanced at him suspiciously.
“To hide all those bruises you must get from falling and bumping into things.”
“Can I help it if I don’t have the eyes of a bat?”
“No,” he said tolerantly. “I don’t suppose you can. But I could do something about that, you know.”
He stepped closer, still holding her fingers in his. The buzz of this touch zigzaged all the way through her this time, like a giant vibrator. Bzzzzzz.
“I actually do have special abilities,” Christian whispered. “For instance, I know what you’re thinking.”
Having stated that, he knelt down in front of her. On his knees. Armani in all that wet grass. Stunned that anyone would ruin such a suit, Veronica watched as he took hold of her right ankle. She had to grab hold of his shoulders to keep from falling on her face as he lifted her foot to remove her one remaining shoe not stuck in the ground.
He ran his fingers under her arch, then across her heel, wiping off the grass. Hell, he might just as well have tossed her to the ground, for all the effect that had. Startling images came hurtling back. Particularly improper ones. Foot foreplay in the limo. His hand on her spine in the pew. Pink lingerie. Fold-out beds. Frothy cream in a can.
“You’re special,” he announced. “You possess senses other women lack. It’s what first attracted me.”
“Not much common sense, it seems,” Veronica whispered, ready to give her head a slap for assuming he was about to make a pass.
No one who looked the way he did would settle for someone like a lowly law clerk. On the plus side, though, what she lacked in looks, she made up for with really good posture. She might not have a lot of curves, but she’d had her share of catcalls from guys on the streets.
She was healthy and had passed through all the usual childhood diseases unscathed. She could cook, when she had to. Well, okay, maybe minimally. She made a mean grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, with sprouts.
Another positive was that she was neat. Though this neatness might be attributed to her slight OCD affliction, it also might have been a nod to the fact that she had always believed a person’s apartment should be guest perfect, just in case. Nothing embarrassing laying around, or dirty dishes on the sink. No underwear dangling in the shower.
Confession: She actually enjoyed housework.
And oh, God, in admitting this, she just might have become her mother’s Stepford creation after all!
“I wonder. Do you have freckles elsewhere, like the ones on your nose?” Christian asked, setting her foot gently on the ground. After that, he let his heated gaze drift upward, which sent flutters of anticipation to all of her private spaces.
This was what thigh-high stockings were designed for, Veronica thought now. Quickies, in indiscriminate locations. The stockings, expensive, seamless, black and silky, covered her feet and legs, but nothing else. Delicate body parts could breathe. She sure wished she could.
Gutter. Mind in the gutter. Yet how could she help it? The last Dracula movie she’d seen had been erotic. Women in red peignoirs. Fanged men in period costume, with all those ruffles. However, this was not a movie. This was another example of her fancy escort’s game of chicken. She had asked for it, by leaving the church in his arms. She had hinted at sex by mentioning whipped cream.
Hell. Already she was panting, and damp in places where moistness did not belong in situations like this. What did she want now? That quickie? In this graveyard? Certainly she wouldn’t be the only person ever to want something like this?
Then again, he’d likely consider that a conquest. Christian might have wanted this all along, and set her up. Like an unsuspecting bug, she might have darted right into his vampy web.
Then again, he was hot. Really hot. And it had been two years since she’d gotten any.
Then again . . . this was hallowed ground, or something.
Her hormones were raging to the point of bunching her undies. The damp grass had felt cool, squishy, and immensely pleasurable on her feet. But those sensations weren’t half as good as the sparkle in Christian’s dreamy eyes.
As he remained on his knees in front of her, Veronica’s body began to boil. She wanted sex, sex, sex, with Christian, wherever she could get it, she decided, and in spite of the indelible ink she had signed the contract with.
Scrutinizing every inch of his slow rise upward from the kneeling position, Veronica desired to jump his impeccable, incredible bones. She was going for those fangs of his nibbling away at the silk, and had wanted this from their first meeting at the agency. Of utmost importance at that moment was finding out what other special abilities he was talking about, that he might possess.
As if reading her mind, Christian pressed her into the marble slab behind her. His body, tight up against hers, fit like a glove. He felt good, smelled good, and was indecently handsome, fangs and all. With his body molded to hers, Veronica felt how interested he was. Hard to miss that.
How much time was left until someone came looking for them? she wondered. Two minutes? Zero minutes? There wasn’t time for a proper kiss, and he was hard all over. His face, in the night, appeared to be carved from ivory. His eyes shone as fiercely as the moon.
Veronica put a hand to her forehead, knowing this behavior was way beyond her. Nothing like her. She doubted if she could keep it up. If she got any hornier, she might never get to the bottom of the fangs issue.
Placing both hands against his chest, preparing to shove Christian away, she felt his muscles undulate, as though they had reacted to her touch in the same way her body was reacting to him.
Wait, her mind warned. Did she really want to distance herself from potential, even if that potential was only good for the next two minutes? Could he actually be interested in her? No joke?
“What would you have me do, my queen?” he whispered.
“I’m thinking.”
More grin. More fang.
Dang.
“Are you mesmerizing me?” she asked.
“Do I need to?”
“Is that a trick question?”
He chuckled. “Shall we finish this conversation after the wedding, when it can have the time and attention it deserves?”
“After the wedding, we won’t feel like finishing.”
“I’ll feel like it.”
“I sincerely doubt that. Besides, I only have you until midnight.”
“I do not flirt, Veronica. Nor do I insinuate interest when I feel none.”
“So, you are interested in loopholes?”
“More th
an interested.”
This was unmistakably true, if his being big and hard in all the right places was the indicator she assumed it was.
Veronica was sure she was going to faint, and wondered who was calling whose bluff, anyway? Maybe it would be safer inside the church, now that she knew he would take her up on her offer of nighttime fantasies. After all, she still didn’t know if these guys had their shots. And she had no idea what to do. She hadn’t actually planned on him being willing.
“I want more from you,” he said, with his face very close to hers. “I want to see the real you. The one you’re hiding.”
“Okay. I give up! It’s a special bra. I admit it. Everything else is the real me, though. You’re close enough to feel that.”
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid thing to say. All she had to do was ask him to take her inside. All she had to do was admit he’d won, and that “chicken” was her middle name.
“We have a contract,” she said, slightly defensively.
“One that binds us,” he agreed.
His nose was against her ear. She couldn’t fan herself, had somehow misplaced her purse.
“Bind?” she chirped.
Christian nodded. His lips slipped across her cheek.
Silk. Velvet. Silk. No hint of a stubble.
“Paragraph seventeen, page two,” he said.
“There was no paragraph seventeen.” She was completely breathless, and unable to hide that fact.
“Oh, but there was.”
“I read the whole thing. I’m experienced in contracts.”
Yet for all her protest, a new and unwelcome tingle of doubt was rising. Now that Veronica thought about it, she didn’t remember what she’d read on that contract. She had been thinking about credit cards and coffins, and . . . could she have just assumed she’d read it?
What did “bind” mean?
“Paragraph seventeen?” she said.
“Binding,” Christian repeated with his mouth hovering right above hers. “More than just consensual sex.”
His breath was warm and scented and lovely. Unanticipated longing now spread to her ears, and up into her hair. She wasn’t at all sure what went beyond consensual sex.
She splayed her fingers over his soft white shirt, measuring how solid his chest was, feeling his heart beating against her palms.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Could you repeat the question?”
“I didn’t ask a question.”
His lips were like honey as they flitted across hers, and way better than wet grass on her toes.
“What does binding mean?” she asked.
“Mating.”
Veronica blinked.
“You chose me, and I chose you,” he said.
“You weren’t even there, at the agency. That was a hoax.”
“I was there.”
“Poppycock.”
“You looked at my photograph longer than the others,” Christian said. “Why?”
She couldn’t avoid his eyes. “You were the handsomest.”
“Is that all?”
“Your eyes seemed to look through me.”
“They looked into you.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Remember,” he suggested as his hands fiddled with a strand of her hair. "Think back.”
“How can I when you’re . . . fiddling?”
“Remember,” he purred, again brushing his mouth over hers lightly.
“I just walked through the row of coffins.” Veronica shivered at the word coffin. Or maybe the chill was due to the way his lips returned as if waiting to soak up her words. Even with her eyes closed, she knew his fangs would be glowing.
“I picked up your photograph,” she said hoarsely. “I heard music.”
And then, whether it was or wasn’t something she’d said, Christian finally used those fangs. He rested his mouth on hers, and bit down teasingly on her lower lip. A mere prick. The tiniest nip.
Veronica’s heart stalled. She all but slumped to the ground. Was that some kind of special kiss, vampire style? The sensation wasn’t at all unpleasant. In fact, it was erotic as hell, and very possibly addicting.
“What else?” he asked, with another small nip.
“I picked up your photograph and read the bio. Brown eyes, body of a God,” she said.
More needles on her mouth, feeling like an itch that needed desperately to be scratched.
“You looked into my eyes, and knew we were a match,” Christian said.
“Your eyes, yes. In your photograph.”
“No. You looked into my eyes, Veronica. My eyes. I wanted to meet you. I wanted to be with you.”
Veronica felt this last nip all the way to her nether regions. She was uniquely aware of his masculinity pressed against her, and how glorious his hair felt as it tickled her skin. She thought she might grab hold of a strand, and rub her face in it. She almost bit him back.
At the same time, in a more distant part of her mind, she thought seriously about running for cover.
“It’s an escort service,” she mewed faintly. “Cut the ominous crap, Chris.”
“We don’t date, Veronica. Not really. That’s the truth.”
“Then what do you do in that agency?”
“We wait.”
“For what?”
“Our true mates to find us.”
Pulling back slightly, Veronica again looked him in the eyes. “What?”
“You already feel it,” he said.
“Feel what?”
But Veronica knew exactly what he meant. Some of it, anyway. This guy and she were lost in the battle of lust at first sight, at first touch. And there was going to be a second touch, if their bodies had anything to say about it. However, there appeared to be something Tall, Chiseled, and Sexy had to get off his chest first. Something he wanted her to understand.
She laid her cards down first. “I don’t expect anything from this or you,” she said. “I take responsibility for the fact that I’m attracted to you, and that this may be a one night stand.”
There. Right up front with her intentions. Way to go.
Christian shook his head. “Have you ever had a one night stand?”
“Well, no. Not exactly.”
This, too, must have been the right answer, because she was rewarded with a real kiss. A french kiss. Lips. Tongues. Wet. Slick. Hotter than hell. Better than anything.
Orgasmic.
With her sister getting married just across the grass, she, Veronica Davis, was spiraling toward heaven with a date who insisted they were soul mates.
But then, she wasn’t born yesterday. Men might say anything to get into a woman’s pants.
Christian was tracing the line of her hip bone through the tight black silk, and Veronica’s hips treacherously undulated of their own accord, excited, needy. Lust flames spread through her with the whooshing sound of oncoming waves as Christian pressed one hand against her pubic bone. She almost laughed, felt quite mad. And then hey . . . look! She no longer had a jacket on!
And hey . . . look! His expensive jacket was lying discarded across the marble tombstone behind them!
It was a graveyard striptease, and the music leading this dance was the fever-pitched humming of her own womb.
“Oh. What are you doing to my neck?” she panted.
“Caressing it.”
“Stop.”
“You don’t really want me to stop.”
“That’s what all men say when their testosterone levels are elevated.”
“You want me to stop?”
“No. I mean yes. Yes.”
As soon as the neck-nuzzling ceased, Veronica grabbed his shirt with both hands and tugged him closer. Stepping up on the bottom edge of the slab behind, she looked him in the eyes. “Say it again.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“The thing you said before that.”
“I wanted to meet you. Be with you.”
“Way before that.”
C
hristian grinned somewhat sinisterly. “About the lace, or the freckles?”
Veronica shook her head. “The bit about me being queen.”
As Christian’s laugh rang out, Veronica slipped one hand between the buttons of his shirt. She fingered the soft hair covering his chest, made sure his heart was racing as fast as hers was, and closed her eyes. Touching his bare skin was like connecting to a live wire.
“So headstrong,” Christian whispered, his hands encircling her waist. “Yet so afraid.”
“So perfect,” she said. “Yet fully fanged.”
Christian chuckled again.
Veronica’s hands danced across his contours.
“It’s a full moon,” she said breathlessly. “I shouldn’t have come outside with you.”
“You’d better get your species straight.” Christian dragged his fangs sensuously across her jaw line, then laid down a row of kisses that nearly did her in.
“Should I be afraid?”
“Aren’t you already afraid?”
Well, she should have been afraid, Veronica supposed. His fangs were fully extended, and pulsing. He had her ground to a gravestone, groin to groin. Still, though, Veronica couldn’t lie. She really didn’t find the fangs spooky.
“I’m used to the look. I was a vampire every Halloween from age six to ten,” she said.
Then, channeling someone that was definitely not herself, she kissed Christian, hard, fully, completely, sliding her tongue over his fangs while making small, happy noises.
The lip lock was long and passionate. A dream kiss. The kind that turns a girl to goo and suggests tossing inhibition to the wind. The kind of kiss that shouts in a very loud voice: “This is it. I’m finally going to have that one-nighter.”
What the inner voice didn’t care to go into was that God might be yards away, inside that church, with all those flowers, and that God might have good peripheral vision. She was up close and personal with Christian Dale, with her buttocks tight up against some poor schmuck’s eternal resting place, for heaven’s sake.
Truly, she thought, sucking lightly on Christian’s lower lip, she was going to need that open bar, later.
As Christian’s pliant tongue touched, taunted, and explored hers, runners of white lava streaked through Veronica, everywhere that a preposition covered. That blaze tasted like mint and sizzled like static. Beneath those things lay an undercurrent of something slightly bitter. Almost metallic. Blood?
Veronica and the Vampire Page 8