Much as she had told Hadrian last night, she had never met anyone as interesting as he was, but she also understood how right he was about what he could offer her.
As she finished her Christmas shopping, preparing for the visit to her family in a few days, she drove him from her mind and told herself that it was better that he not show up tonight at her collection kettle. A clean break would help her forget him, forget the passion that had painfully brought home all that she was missing in her life.
But when she dragged the Santa suit from her closet and began to dress, there was no denying that a part of her wished she would see him.
The water globe sat beside his empty chalice of blood.
Hadrian picked up the globe, shook it, placed it back on the table and watched the swirling bits of fake snow and glitter as they twirled around the Santa.
From outside came the regular chiming of the bell, calling to him, but he had been ignoring it for most of the night, telling himself that heeding its entreaty would bring them both nothing but pain.
Hadrian knew she wouldn’t be out there for much longer. It was nearly nine and the library would soon close. Foot traffic would die down after that, leaving her no reason to stay at her spot.
But nine came and went as did ten and the bell continued to chime until he could no longer avoid its summoning.
He dressed quickly and was on his way down the stairs when the ringing stopped. He paused as well, telling himself that he had lost his chance, until the bell began to ring wildly, all rhythm gone before silence filled the night.
Something was wrong.
He rushed down the stairs and across the street to where Connie lay on the ground, her collection kettle overturned beside her, change littering the ground. The bell silent in her hand.
As he bent and took her into his arms, he smelled the blood. Steam rose from the center of her body into the night air. He ripped open the front of the Santa jacket and her blood warmed the palm of his hand.
She had been knifed. The regular spurt of blood escaping her body told him that her attacker had slashed an artery.
He pressed his hand to the wound and looked around wildly for help, but the area was devoid of any people since it was late. He summoned George silently and concentrated on what he could do for Connie.
Her face was already growing pale as her life’s blood leaked through his fingers. He whispered her name and when she didn’t respond, he repeated it, a little more strongly.
She roused, her eyelids fluttering up and down as she struggled for consciousness. She whispered something, only he barely heard her, even with his vampire hearing. He cradled her close and whispered in her ear, “Do not leave me.”
This time he did hear her barely audible words.
“Do you believe in Fate, Hadrian?”
He glanced down at her face and then at the blood escaping from her body at an alarming pace. George arrived then, but stopped abruptly, his gaze drifting to the sidewalk beside them.
Hadrian looked there as well and noted the growing pool of blood. He met George’s gaze and recognized the sadness there.
As he peered down at Connie once again, he allowed the vampire to emerge and heard the erratic beat of her heart, frantically trying to maintain life. Slowing as life failed.
Her words battered his brain.
Do you believe in Fate, Hadrian?
Fate.
It had brought him nothing but death and here it was again, he thought as he held her close and felt her life fading.
“Hadrian,” George said and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
He looked to his keeper, who motioned to Connie and said, “It doesn’t have to end this way.”
Do you believe in Fate, Hadrian? He dared not hope. Dared not believe that this time Fate had a different plan in mind. But even as he struggled to believe, he realized he couldn’t hesitate for much longer. Her heart faltered and the time between each beat lengthened. Each beat grew weaker.
Do you believe in Fate? he asked himself, but even as he did so, he returned to his bedroom in a burst of vampire speed and tenderly laid Connie on the bed.
He freed the vampire and bent his head to her neck, felt the last remaining vestiges of life in her body, stubbornly refusing to give up.
Driving his fangs into her neck, he fed from her and bestowed the ultimate kiss. Beneath his fangs came the first stirrings of something different in her body and he picked her up once again.
Her eyelids fluttered open and he slashed his wrist with his fangs and brought the wrist to her mouth, but even as he did so, he said, “If you do not feed now, the transformation will end.”
And you will die, he thought, but he didn’t say it. He knew she understood, but there was no hesitation as she closed her mouth over his wrist and fed.
His body responded to the pull of her lips against his flesh. To the smell of the blood from both their bodies. As he gazed down at where she had been knifed, there was no fresh blood flowing. The healing powers of the vampire blood now racing through her veins were already at work.
But so was the passion of the vampire’s kiss. His body was rock-hard, almost painfully so.
As she finished feeding and sucked in a shaky breath, she moaned and asked, “What is this?”
“The ultimate passion,” he answered, bending his head to lick the remnants of his blood from her lips. As he did so, he sensed the heat of her body, beyond that of the human, as the transformation continued.
Connie held on to his shoulders as everything around her and in her shifted with alarming speed. Need grew in her, both for possession and to be possessed, nearly painful in its intensity and she knew he felt it as well. Beneath her hands his body trembled as he restrained himself.
“What do you fear?” she asked.
“If we consummate this passion now…there could be consequences.” The strain of emotion, intense, dark and hopeful, filled his voice.
She cradled his face—a face that had grown dear to her in just a few short days—in her hands and said, “Then let Fate bring you life this Christmas.”
He muttered an expletive before he lifted her from the bed and took her to his bathroom, where he gently undressed her, tossing away the bloodstained Santa suit and thermal undergarments.
When she stood before him naked, her body burning up with heat and stained with her blood, he gently took her into his arms and whispered, “You will never regret this choice.”
He reached past her to the glass doors of the large shower and opened it. He walked them in and then turned on the water, which sprang at them from all sides, washing away the evidence of the earlier violence. All that remained of her knife wound was a pink line across her midsection.
Steam quickly filled the space of the shower from the warmth of the water, but with the change surging through her, it felt chilled on her skin. As he embraced her, his body was even colder and she shivered.
He laid his forehead against hers. “This is the heat of the vampire. Once the change is complete, you will feel it only when you let the demon take control.”
She understood that when the human was in power, the chill of death would mark her skin because she was…
Dead.
Had he not turned her as she had asked, her life would be over. But it wasn’t, and in his arms there was the promise of still more.
“Love me, Hadrian,” she said and laid a hand over his heart, which thumped strongly beneath her hand.
Ever thoughtful, he began, “Are you—”
“Sure? More than you can know.”
Tension escaped from his body beneath her hand, the way the hesitation washed away with the water streaming down their bodies.
He bent down from his greater height and kissed her, holding her tight against him as he devoured her mouth with his, murmuring soft words of love in a language that needed no translation.
They were both breathing raggedly when he shifted, lowering himself to suckle her breasts and i
ntensify the need building inside of her. She begged him then for fulfillment, needing no further preliminaries, and he complied, easing one thigh between her legs and finding the center of her. Slowly he eased himself within, stretching her and igniting yet more heat as he penetrated her.
She grabbed his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his hips, deepening his possession.
He groaned and splayed one hand across the small of her back, while bracing the other on the wall of the shower stall. He met her gaze as he shifted his hips and drove upward, yanking a startled gasp from her due to the strength of his thrust.
“Did I hurt you, cara?” he asked, but didn’t wait for her answer to bend his head and tug at her distended nipple with his mouth.
She held his head to her with one hand, using the other to steady her as she moved her hips and rode him, the heat of the water nothing compared to that which was building in their bodies.
The climax that came was swift and punishing, leaving them clinging to one another as if separation would bring pain.
And maybe it would, she thought, holding him tight to her even after he had slipped from her body.
He, too, refused to lose his connection since he somehow managed to grab a towel and wrap them in it, their damp bodies fused together. He returned to life more quickly than she had imagined. When he eased within her again, she was still slick and swollen from their earlier lovemaking. The friction of him moving within quickly pulled a release from her, but he remained rock-hard as he walked her back to the bed and laid her on the edge so he could touch her while he continued his slow, tantalizing strokes.
As he caressed her nipples, rotating them with his fingers, she came again, her body arching off the bed, begging for more, and he gave it, moving one hand down to put pressure on the aching nub of her clitoris. Rubbing it and intensifying the release ripping through her body until he gave one last powerful thrust and came again. His body shuddered from the force of his release.
When he dropped down onto her, he was trembling and she felt the heat of his body.
As he raised himself up on one hand, he wore his demon face and something inside of her responded. Heat erupted inside of her, nearly searing her body from its strength. She knew what he wanted, what was needed to finish this coupling, but he asked anyway.
“Bite me, cara. Make me yours,” he said and she lifted her head and sank her fangs into his neck.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked even as he ran a possessive hand across her belly.
She rested her hand over his, knowing as he did that new life grew within her. It had only been two days since he had turned her, but she had quickly come to realize in that time just how much a vampire was attuned to not only all around them, but also to the demands and state of their own bodies.
It was how she knew that Fate had brought them both wondrous gifts that Christmas.
A moment later, the door opened and her mother stood there, a bright smile on her face.
“Mi’ja. You didn’t tell me you were bringing anyone.”
Connie smiled and twined her fingers with his.
“Mami, I want you to meet Hadrian.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1005-3
HOLIDAY WITH A VAMPIRE
Copyright © 2007 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
CHRISTMAS CRAVINGS
Copyright © 2007 by Maureen Child
FATE CALLS
Copyright © 2007 by Caridad Piñeiro Scordato
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
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