After the Kiss

by Michele Hauf

  He had. Lately my aggressiveness surprised me.

  “Hey, Bella.” Revin leaned against the wall about a foot from where the donor had stood. His short dark hair was tousled. That sexy white smile always improved my mood. “Smells like a good vintage.”

  I licked my lips. “He was.”

  “So what’s with the strong-arming?”

  “Oh?” I stepped back from the donor, disentangling my red pump from his legs. “Didn’t notice any rough stuff.”

  “You ask me, it looked like you were working out some frustrations.”

  “No, it’s…” definitely frustration “…hunger. Just been a few days, you know?”

  He didn’t buy it. But he didn’t press.

  I’d met Revin a month earlier in a nightclub that catered to us paranormal sorts. He’s from tribe Nava, the oldest and most revered vampire tribe around. Vampires run in tribes, though not all vamps align themselves with them. It’s not a requirement. Actually the tribes can be very selective. I have no desire to join one.

  I am a member of a two-person pack, and I like that just fine.

  I am not stupid. The minute word got out that there was a new vampire female in the vicinity, the male vampires of America pursued me—until they learned my mate was a werewolf.

  I know how to dodge a slippery Dick, Roger or Harry. I am not completely incapable. But Revin intrigues me. He’d never tried to come on to me, which I appreciate. It is because I smell like wolf. He told me that.

  “There’s a get-together tonight at Crimson Cellars,” he offered now. “Couple dozen vamps and some mortals.” He leaned forward, closing the distance between us. “Come on, Bella, we’ll let you join in our vampire games.”

  I smirked at his playful invitation. Most vamps would rather I didn’t join their fun. I am tainted, don’t you know.

  “Come on, Bella, you need to get out and have a little fun. Your dog is too protective.”

  “For good reason.”

  Severo feared a vampire might retaliate toward me for siding with a werewolf—hell, for becoming a werewolf’s mate. The wolves and vampires had always maintained a tenuous relationship. They weren’t centuries-old enemies as the witches and vampires had once been. But they had committed plenty of vicious crimes against one another to keep them on opposite sides, fangs gnashing and talons threatening.

  Rev toed the donor’s leg. The guy smiled and coiled up as if drifting into a peaceful sleep. I’d used persuasion to take memory of our encounter from his brain, but I always left them with a reverie of our sensual embrace.

  “Why doesn’t he do this for you?” Rev asked. “If you’re so all about staying home with sugar daddy, he should be providing your sustenance.”

  “Can a vampire survive on one person’s blood alone?” I wondered. Curiosity had stripped my caution.

  “Yes, an exclusive donor would make you stronger,” he answered, then bowed his head. He was a great guy. But always searching, I felt, for something to fulfill him. “Your wolf take your bite?”

  I turned a shoulder and nodded in a roundabout way, not really a yes, not really a no.

  “If he loves you, he will,” Revin said softly. “Just promise me, Bella, if you ever do become his mate completely—in body and blood—you won’t forget we’re out here. Your kind. At least, I’m here for you. I like being your friend.”

  “I need your support.” I leaned in to kiss his cheek. He blushed. Yeah, vamps blush. This one did. Reminded me of a good friend I’d lost six months earlier. I missed his companionship. “And your friendship. Thanks, Rev.”

  I was late. The analysis meeting took longer than I’d expected. The containment team would be able to rescue not one, but two natural wolves this weekend. That put me over the moon.

  It made up for Bella’s cold refusal last night.

  I’d avoided asking her what it was about this morning before leaving for the Wolf Sanctuary. She must be PMSing. No problem. My werewolf could handle the occasional sexless moon. I had done so for decades before meeting Bella.

  Yet a night without my mate at my side, in my arms and under my body, makes me feel cold. Unwanted.

  I shook my head to dislodge the disturbing thought. I was overthinking this. It meant nothing. She hadn’t been in the mood; that was all.

  I’d passed a florist on the way home and had in mind to apologize to Bella for being late, and for whatever it was I’d done to deserve her ill treatment.

  The little things still mean so much to her—as if with the ritual accompanying a small gesture she can still grasp the piece of humanity she had to sacrifice when she became a vampire.

  The last time I felt a part of the human race…well, perhaps I never had. It matters little. I am a part of the world. I function and exist alongside mortals, yet I know to keep my truths secret from them. Bella’s love is all that matters to me.

  Swinging around to the back of the Jeep, I opened the trunk and drew out the bouquet of white roses the florist had dethorned and tied in a tight bouquet with a long red ribbon. The ribbon against the white petals resembled a stream of blood dripping from Bella’s mouth.

  I had to smirk at the thought. No longer put off by Bella’s need to take blood to survive, I actually got turned on when she invited me along to watch her take a donor. The sensuality of the act always made me hard. Which led to me pushing Bella against the wall and taking her right there, while the bitten human slumped, in bliss, nearby.

  So long as it’s the other guy and not me.

  Sniffing the roses, I decided they did not smell nearly as delicious as Bella. Striding down the marble foyer, I followed her innate scent. Cloves sprinkled upon warm skin and tickled with the salty kiss of woman.

  She stood with her back to me before the patio door looking out at the setting sun. Golden light shone on her as if she was a star upon a stage.

  My spotting the black bow at the back of her neck quickened my steps toward her. I swung the rose bouquet, unmindful each swing released petals. What was she wearing?

  “My gorgeous lover,” I breathed.

  Red and black silk clung to her hips and derriere, and slithered down the backs of her legs to end in a bouquet of ruffles. It was one of the flamenco dresses she wore when dancing.

  Bella is a dancer, but she has yet to dance for me alone.

  Her back was completely bare, save the black ribbon trailing down her spine.

  She turned around and a few tendrils of her upswept hair tickled the fine column of her neck. “You like?” she asked.

  The front view was better than the back. The red fabric hugged her breasts, revealing tight peaks of nipples. The skirt front was cut higher than the back, and as she slid forward one leg, it parted all the way up to—“Wow.”

  “A man of few words.” She smiled and lifted her arms in the sensual curves of the flamenco dance.

  I wanted to seize her by the neck and press a bruising kiss to her mouth, but I could only admire. Admonished last night, I wasn’t sure what to feel, how to receive her sudden seduction. Was I now to be rewarded after the reprimand?

  Deep in her green eyes she smiled wickedly. That smile, so innately Bella, surged through me and stiffened my cock.

  Perhaps this was her way of apologizing to me for being so brusque last night.

  I traced a finger along the low neckline. Her breasts were high and perfumed with clove. So lickable.

  Drawing her hands high at my chest, I dove in to kiss—yet stopped before touching her expectant mouth.

  I growled pleasantly, gripping a thick clutch of ruched fabric at her thigh. “Can I play with your ruffles?”

  She tugged a little, but did not escape my clasp. “Do with me as you wish.”

  Mm, but I loved her.

  “On one condition,” she said, and drew away.

  As she did, the ruffles spilled from my grasp. Losing her. Not completely yours yet. Something yet cleaving you two apart.

  Bella smiled to reveal fangs.

&nb
sp; I knew the condition she would apply to this night’s seduction.

  I’d forgotten about the roses. Now I brought them to my nose, then clasped the thick white heads and crushed them.

  Chapter Four

  He was not going to meet the unspoken condition I had tossed into the ether. My husband stood before me, a bouquet of tattered white roses dangling near his leg.

  I asked too much of him. To accept a vampire’s bite.

  In the werewolf community, to wear the bite from a vampire is a stigma worthy of expulsion from the pack. Severo doesn’t run with a pack; he’s a lone wolf, and happy for it. So the stigma wouldn’t be as condemning for him.

  Yet with my bite would also come the need to take human blood. Werewolves do not drink blood from humans. They need the human race for little beyond companionship. Should I bite him, my husband would develop a desire completely unnatural to his breed.

  Was it any different than my being turned vampire against my will?

  Don’t think like that, Bella.

  I ran a palm up my arm and tilted my head at his approach. I could feel his touch before it happened. Severo invaded me with warmth, presence and desire.

  His actual touch made me shiver.

  “Forget it,” I said. “I ask too much. I should be happy you’ve accepted a vampire into your life. I am happy.”

  I fought back tears. I felt like a child denied entrance to all the rides at a theme park after my wish to visit had been granted.

  He tossed the bouquet to the chaise beside us. White petals scattered on the deep blue fabric. What woman didn’t desire a bed of roses? To be laid down and made love to upon silken petals?

  “Bella,” he whispered in the voice that conquered me with each throaty syllable. “I want to give you…all I can.” Difficult for him to speak. He was thinking each word through. Forcing them. “If you wish…bite me, Bella. You must have that connection.”

  Sniffing a tear, I pushed from his embrace, regretting it and yet unable to stand in his false sympathy.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  He shrugged. Bastard.

  “I won’t bite you. You don’t want it. You cannot move beyond your past. It binds you. I understand your aversion to vampires.”

  “Bella—”

  “Or is it guilt?” I dodged his grasp and plucked a single rose head, then clasped it to my breast. “A means to atone for you not being there when I was attacked by those vampires and forever changed to something I would never have asked for.”

  He angled his head down and looked up at me. I hated that look. Jaw tense and eyes fierce, he fought aggression. The man did not take well to being put in his place, to being challenged. Not without equal challenge.

  But he did not negate my words. Instead, Severo turned and paced to the patio door. Finally he said, “You’re right.”

  No! I don’t want to be right. I want you, all of you, because you want to be a part of me, not out of guilt.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” He flinched when I put a hand on his shoulder. What was I doing? Would I beg forgiveness for speaking my mind? “But it’s how I feel.”

  Turning my back to him, I crossed my arms over my stomach. Our first marital spat? It felt dangerously devastating. Soul-wounding. This was no simple tiff over credit cards or leaving the toilet seat up.

  “I cherish you, Bella.” He did not turn to face me. His voice cracked with pain. “Perhaps I have held you too close. Become overprotective. And in doing so you see what I have done? My enemies have punished me for coveting something. From the moment we met, I have been relentless in winning you.”

  “I did not follow against my will.” I kept the words “because I love you” inside. It was hard enough to keep back the tears. “I like your possessiveness. To a degree.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But this has nothing to do with your inability to accept—”

  He spun me around and kissed me. Stole my attack. He could take anything he wished from me; I would relent, always.

  Drawing up my knee, I pressed my body the length of his, wanting to enter him, insinuate myself within him. Could I swim his bloodstream and know his thoughts, his pain, his dreams and desires?

  I know his desires and dreams. The man has dreams of rescuing all the natural wolves in the countryside from destruction. As for his pain? It is all too obvious every time he limps into the room.

  “You should go away,” he said at the end of the kiss.

  That was not what I’d expected to hear.

  I tried to pull from his embrace, but he held me firmly. A heartbeat strong and proud battered my own frantic pulse. He nuzzled into my hair and kissed the lobe of my ear. Tenderly, as if he’d not just announced he wished me to leave.

  To go away from him.

  “Bella, I’ve coddled you. When you go out to take a donor, I often go along. You’ve not had opportunity to be the vampire you have become. Maybe what you need is a week or two on your own? Time to immerse yourself in—”

  “I go out alone. I even have vampire friends.”

  “Because I trust Revin Parker.”

  I had always suspected Severo followed me and checked up on my vampire friends—okay, friend. I couldn’t fault him. It was his protective instinct.

  “You want me to leave our home? Severo, I don’t understand.” Panic made me jittery. “I won’t ask again to bite you, I promise. Just don’t ask me to leave.”

  “I don’t want you to…” He stroked the hair from my cheek. His whiskey eyes glittered with unshed tears. I had never seen him this way, as panicked as I felt. “I want to do what is right,” he said. “Perhaps I need some time to face my demons. To get beyond whatever it is that keeps me from completely surrendering to you.”

  “I don’t want your surrender.”

  And yet I did. I expected it. After all, I’d surrendered to his werewolf.

  “You deserve it.” He kissed my cheek, my forehead. “You will have it.”

  Time away from my husband? We had married only two nights ago. This was crazy. I would not let it happen. “Then I think I know something you can do for me.”

  I headed for the office. Severo followed. I used the computer in his office because I still had a few clients for whom I designed websites. Anything that was his was mine, he’d once said.

  And so I’m a snoop.

  I walked to his desk and drew open the bottom drawer. Inside lay an old letter sent by Olivia Chase to Severo in the 1970s.

  I set the letter on the desk and looked into my husband’s worried eyes. “You need to go see her.”

  Chapter Five

  I’d be lying to myself if I do not admit I am desperately in love with Bella. So desperate I took her crazy suggestion to heart. Visit Olivia Chase? I don’t know the werewolf personally, but she made herself known to me decades earlier.

  She lives at the hunting camp five hours north of the Twin Cities, and the place holds so many vicious memories for me that to even touch her letter sent a shiver up my spine. And yet I’ve kept the simple missive that invited me to visit. I have never abandoned hope—it abandoned me.

  A man cannot exist in this world consumed by hatred. While my breed has very good reason to despise the vampires, I do not wish to perpetuate the pain. I had to make this trip. Not merely for Bella and my future, but for my own sanity.

  I shifted the Jeep into third and took a gravel road softened from last night’s rain. Bella sat silently on the passenger seat. The last thing she’d said as we’d buckled up and begun the trip was, “I love you.”

  My heart stopped for the moment it took to roll those words about in my brain. How can she love a man who is not willing to sacrifice completely for her?

  She only wanted to bite me. It would not hurt. It’s supposed to feel incredible. Like orgasm, the blood swoon was always good to its victims.

  That was the thing. My family had been victims to the vampires. I could not get past that, had not been able to for deca
des. Nor could I willingly offer my throat to become yet another victim.

  What an idiot!

  I was arguing points that had happened decades ago. I had moved beyond that time—at least on the surface. But hatred and fear run deep.

  I had found my mate. A woman I intended to love for the rest of my life. A life centuries shorter than hers, for werewolves live about three or four centuries, while vampires had immortality.

  I have a good two and a half centuries yet with my wife. Did I want to spend it refusing one simple request?

  Hell no.

  There was one thing to do. I did not look forward to it. Olivia Chase’s land was fifteen minutes ahead by car.

  “She’s gorgeous,” Bella said as an older woman stepped out from the log cabin to greet us.

  Tall and slender, she moved like a marsh reed, graceful yet wiry. Long gray hair swept to where faded blue jeans snugged her hips. Model perfect, save for a few lines and wrinkles. I judged her about three centuries old.

  I put the Jeep in park and got out, clasping Bella’s hand as we approached Olivia. She went in for the hug, and I accepted it willingly. She was my breed, and a rarity simply because she was female.

  “This is my wife, Belladonna. In fact, we just married a few days ago.”

  Olivia extended a hand and Bella shook it. The female werewolf tilted her head curiously and clamped her other palm over their clasped hands. We can read people by scent and presence. “You’re a vampire.”

  Bella nodded.

  “I heard you had taken a vampire lover,” Olivia said to me. “So your visit does not surprise me. Come inside, will you? I’ll answer any questions you may have.”

  Olivia Chase purchased this land in the 1960s, seven years after vampires had owned it. Vampires who had hunted werewolves, killing off three entire packs and crippling dozens more by slaughtering their females so the packs were unable to procreate.

  I had witnessed the horrors that had occurred on this very sight. So much blood and agony. Senseless violence. Play at violence, really. The vampires had used my breed in a wicked game.