Under The Kissing Bough: 15 Romantic Holiday Novellas

by Kathryn Le Veque

She stopped typing. Did I just say luller? I meant lover. No one needs a lover for Christmas.

  Her eyes darted to the clock in the corner of the computer screen. Eight-fifteen. At eight-thirty she would head down to the cafeteria to hang the damn mistletoe.

  “Mistletoe.” She banged the keys.

  What had she been thinking telling everyone we should dress this place up for the holidays? “They’re vampires. Why would they care about Christmas, Kittery?” she snarled at herself.

  Eight-sixteen.

  Using the mouse, she highlighted the top line of the stupid flyer she’d also been moronic enough to volunteer to create. “A Christmas party? Really, Kittery? Really?”

  After changing the font style and adding red and green color, using italics and bold, and then adding in the clip art elves drinking eggnog and holding candy canes beneath more flipping mistletoe, she clicked print.

  “Of all the stupid, dumbass, idiotic things to do…let’s have a Christmas party.” She said the words using the most annoying imitation of her own voice she could manage. “Who are you, Madame Christmas Cheer?”

  She stomped around her desk, grabbing the edge to steady herself on her wobbly high heels, then continued marching to the printer to jerk the ten copies from the machine. Quickly she checked for spelling errors and aesthetics because if she was going to do the job, even if it was the most ridiculous task she could have possibly suggested, she was going to do it right. You can’t market anything with trashy flyers.

  “Well, this looks fantastic, if you’re planning a Christmas party for a bunch of vampires.”

  No one needs a lover for Christmas. No one needs a lover for Christmas. No one needs a lover forever at any point in her life because why on earth would a woman need a lover?

  With a shove she pushed open the door from the office area out to the rest of the base, quickly spun on her heel, tripping and stumbling a few feet before managing to duck into the first open door.

  Standing in the supply closet, pretending to need more paper, Selene kept her back to the door as her boss, Serge walked by.

  “It just doesn’t make sense. Even if he was trying to control them, why would he not want them to have fangs?” Serge asked.

  “Agreed. Wouldn’t his army be a lot more powerful if they had fangs? They’d certainly do more damage with them. I know I’d be more interested in them, if they had fangs like these.” A low rumble of a laugh followed the voice that made Selene’s body betray her every time she heard it.

  She stared straight ahead, trying not to think about the fangs she knew Oswald Addison was flashing. He was quite proud of them. Well, who wouldn’t be? They were enormous, and if they were any indicator of how strong and powerful and vampirish he was, it meant he was practically a vampire Atlas.

  “Good evening Kit,” Serge called as he walked by.

  “Evening, Serge,” she said without turning. Instead she examined a box of pushpins with the most intense interest.

  “Hey, Kitty-Kitty,” Oswald said.

  At the sound of the name he had been calling her from the moment they’d met a terrible zing of anticipation started at her nipples then zigzagged in every direction across her skin. It was nearly impossible to remain standing.

  No one else had ever called her Kitty-Kitty. Not that she’d have tolerated it or wanted it or ever even thought of such a name. But Oswald used it and when he did, things happened. Sexy, naughty, private things. Things that certainly shouldn’t happen at work.

  The closet darkened, suddenly cut off from the light of the hallway. “What are you looking at? Can’t be much since you’re standing in the dark.”

  Selene swallowed hard and knew for sure every vampire within twenty feet heard the squeaky glug in her throat.

  With a soft click the overhead light cast a glow into the closet.

  The heat of Oz’s body flared against Selene’s backside, and she couldn’t help but clench her butt cheeks, which of course, made her worry he noticed because everyone knew that Oz noticed every woman’s butt.

  “Ah, pushpins. What are you doing with those?” He looked over her shoulder.

  Oz’s body was all raw, hard muscle. He was like nothing Selene had ever seen. He only ever wore cotton t-shirts that stretched so tight across his chest and around his arms. She didn’t have to use any bit of imagination to wonder what he’d look like shirtless.

  His jeans were always so tight she’d have sworn they were painted on, and that smile. God, that smile. He flashed it for every girl, including Selene. Generally, it was fangless and perfect. When he really wanted to flirt, he lowered his sunglasses and gazed over the top with those green eyes, and just the look of him, so sexy, so perfect, made her pathetically puddy-like.

  Against her better judgment she glanced up to her right to find those dazzling eyes above that perfect smile, and she wondered if his lips would be as soft as she imagined.

  “You really like those pushpins,” he said.

  She nodded, feeling the box tumble against her chest. “Pushpins.”

  He rubbed her back. “You okay?”

  She nodded and somewhere in the back of her mind she heard a little voice screaming. What are you doing? You’re not like every other girl. Stop it!

  Then the voice triumphantly repeated her mantra.

  No one needs a lover for Christmas. No one needs a lover for Christmas. No one needs a luller for Christmas.

  “You want me to take those?” His hand came to her chest, fingers working their way under hers. The soft press of his wrist to her body was perfect. His warm skin and tender touch made her sway on her too-high-for-work-heels.

  Selene dropped her gaze to see Oswald’s wrist lightly resting on her breasts, his fingers carefully plucking pushpins from her cleavage.

  “No one needs a rubber for his mast.” She smacked his hands away. “No lullers!”

  Oz yanked his hand back. “I don’t know what a luller is, but you have pins in there.” He pointed at her breasts.

  “Don’t you think I know exactly what’s happening with my…these?” She motioned to her breasts.

  “Well, I didn’t.” He grinned that damn grin, and Selene felt the area between her legs clench tighter than her butt. “Hmm-mmm. You do surprise me Kitty-Kitty. I had no idea the choir girl liked a little pain.” He dipped his head closer to her face. “But, they do say the little church girls have a wild side. I’d love to see yours.”

  Selene gasped. “I don’t like pain, and don’t get any ideas.” That was the moment a pin slipped between her breasts, wedging itself in tight. “Ow! Damn it, Oswald.” She spun around, shoving her hand inside her bra and coming out with three pins. “I’ll thank you very much to leave me alone.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want to. I like you.”

  “Oh, please. Me and every other person with a vagina.” Reaching back, she grabbed the half empty box and huffed off to find the nearest ladies room. She needed cool water for her face and to remove her bra because there were at least two more pins stuck inside.

  HER VAMPIRE PROTECTOR

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Oswald!” The shriek of his name accompanied a stinging burn on Oz’s cheek, and he was fairly certain the imprint of Selene’s lovely hand flared on his skin.

  Admiring the pink tinge of her cheeks, the fiery glare that made her hazel eyes glow, and slight quiver of her full bottom lip, he stepped in another few inches and smiled.

  “Oh, come on, Kitty-Kitty. It wasn’t that bad.”

  “You had no right to kiss me. None!” She pointed a finger of the offending hand into his face. “You are an unbelievably incorrigible, inappropriate, unacceptable clod.”

  “Aren’t you the one who hung the mistletoe?” Gently taking her warm hand in his, he turned her finger to point to the deep green sprig dangling from a red velvet bow above her head.

  As if on perfect cue a slight gasp escaped her mouth, and Oz counted the usual five seconds it took The Vampire Guard’s accountan
t to regain her composure.

  With practiced precision and in this exact order Selene’s back stiffened, her mouth closed, shoulders dropped, and her deliciously curved chin turned up before she slowly blinked, though did not make eye contact with the kissing clod standing inches from her.

  “That is neither here nor there.” Placing a hand on Ozzy’s chest she pushed him aside. “I just hung the damn thing not more than…” Her attention dropped to the step stool still positioned in the doorway, “…thirty seconds ago. How on earth could you possibly kiss me in that short time?”

  Oz plucked a berry from the sprig overhead, rolling the tiny white ball between his thumb and forefinger. “A man can do an awful lot in thirty seconds.”

  “Not with me he can’t.” She grabbed the stool and hammer and marched off.

  Grateful she’d chosen to wear a pretty dark green skirt and form-fitting ivory sweater Oswald watched Selene’s tight little ass sway with each step as she stormed across the cafeteria and out the opposite door.

  “I think she hates you.” Garrison stared at the photos on his phone and laughed.

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see.” Oz glanced up at the mistletoe, taking quick inventory of the number of berries. It appeared there were six more opportunities to change her mind. “Text me those, will you?”

  “This is my favorite.” Garrison held up his phone to show a picture of the exact moment Selene’s hand made contact with Oswald’s face.

  Oz laughed. “Yeah, that’s a good one. But send them all.”

  “This is a good one, too. You can see every curve. I do like her new wardrobe. Wonder what’s gotten into our little choir girl.”

  Oz had been wondering the same exact thing. Not that he didn’t like her choice in clothes, but he was surprised by the tight skirts and peeks of cleavage she’d recently been flashing. Surprised and feeling a strong urge to cover her up in public.

  He’d been trying his hardest to get Selene’s attention from the moment she started working here. He stopped by her office every evening to see how she was and what she was wearing. He tried striking up conversations with her, tried catching her on coffee breaks, lunch breaks, dinner breaks, in the parking garage, even outside of the base.

  The woman refused to acknowledge him unless he offended her, and even then she paid him very little attention. She was killing him.

  Of course, it was all his fault. He could have easily lured her to him or at the very least allowed nature to take its course. Instead, some inexplicable force compelled him not to allow vampire influence to persuade her to do anything that might remotely make her want him.

  Not only was she killing him by refusing to speak to him and compounding that by wearing clothes that made him want to beg her to look his way, but that unknown something was slowly torturing him to death.

  “Okay. Six pics of proof Selene Kittery has no interest in Oswald Addison coming your way.”

  “Hi Ozzy,” a pair of feminine voices sang from the doorway behind him, and Oz turned with a grin.

  “Well, hello ladies.” He walked toward them arms open to scoop them both into one hug as he ushered them back toward the kitchen, pecking kisses to each lovely lady’s mouth. “And how are my favorite cooks tonight?”

  “Fine,” they answered in unison, smiling.

  “We saw the mistletoe,” Brown-Eyed Susan said.

  “And you know what they say,” Judy Blue Eyes chirped, pointing to the doorway.

  “Ah, yes. I most certainly do.” Oz pressed a firmer kiss to Judy’s mouth. “And, as always, I’m happy to oblige.” He bent to do the same to Susan, whose lips were already in full pucker.

  Judy and Susan were not the loveliest ladies Oswald had ever kissed. In fact, they weren’t physically lovely in any way. Both were wider than they were tall and always smelling like whatever they’d been cooking that day, leaving no hint of the sweet scent of a woman. But both were kinder than most women he knew and a hell of a lot funnier.

  Oz couldn’t help but enjoy them. Though, truth be told, there were few women he did not enjoy in one way or another.

  “We’re going to be late.” The flash on Garrison’s camera lit. “And the last time we were late we ended up with door duty.” His voice hitched, and from the corner of Oz’s eye he noted the way Garrison flinched.

  The poor guy still hadn’t gotten over his experience of tripping Rafe and Gabe’s alarm system.

  “Oh, damn it.” Oswald looked down at the plump beauties in his arms, noting the scent of garlic, nutmeg, and fennel. “What I wouldn’t give to stay with you darlings all night.” He nuzzled Susan’s neck, then quickly paid the same attention to Judy, feigning a hungry growl against her skin.

  Both women giggled and squirmed, and Oz pretended to struggle as he let them slip away.

  “Until we meet again, ladies.” He bowed in a flourish, then turned quickly to exit the kitchen back to the cafeteria and led the way to the nightly briefing meeting, only half listening to Garrison jabber on about how he also had women falling all over him.

  Unlike most every other member of The Vampire Guard, Oz didn’t actually mind Garrison. Generally, he found him amusing, at someone else’s expense, of course, though amusing nonetheless.

  Skirting into the briefing room just before the doors closed earned them an unamused nod from Serge. “Glad you could make it.”

  Seated beside Serge was Joao Pontes, a former scientist at Panthera Laboratories, and Lawrie Tyrone. Joao and his family recently joined ranks with The Guard in an effort to help counter Panthera’s efforts to create a man-made vampire army.

  Oz glanced across the room to see Joao’s daughter Aurelia seated beside her mate, Gabe. Aurelia was a newly turned vampire, changed by Gabe in an effort to save her life. Oz was pretty sure her link to The Guard helped to bring the Pontes family back into the fold.

  It was rare for women to successfully make the transformation to vampire, which made her all the more protected within their ranks.

  The lights dimmed, drawing Oz’s attention back to the front of the room where Lawrie nodded in response to something Joao said.

  Lawrie came to The Guard after escaping a tortured life trapped at Panthera. Her father had been one of the laboratory’s founders. After he died in the fire that all but demolished the lab and killed several humans and vampires, his brother hid her away, filling her with lies about the vampires.

  “As a quick review—Joao and Lawrie have determined the revenant juice Tyrone has been using is derived from the blood of at least three of our members. Lawrie, why don’t you share what we know so far?” Serge took a seat, handing the clicker to Lawrie.

  Against the far wall the projector lit with a molecular module, titled Revenant Theory A.

  “Here we have a typical molecule of hemoglobin found in human blood. Though there may be some differences across races, a typical healthy cell looks fairly similar to this.”

  The slide clicked and a new image, titled Average Vampire Hemoglobin appeared. There was a distinct similarity, though some very obvious differences.

  “Note the way the double helix curves in on the right side, yet on the left it curves out. This difference between the two species is seen in every cell we observed, and we observed upwards of two thousand in samples taken from every member of The Guard, including the oldest and newest vampires. This trait is the same in everyone.”

  She pressed the button again and a new slide titled Reade Hayes Bi-Product appeared. “This is a molecule taken from one of the first revenants to be captured.”

  The left side of the molecule appeared to have melted onto itself.

  “Well, it seems the first round of experiments was conducted using Reade’s blood, which as we’ve seen over the recent months has not worked in my uncle’s favor.” The slight hitch in her voice would have been imperceptible in most circumstances, but seeing as she was speaking to a group of vampires about her husband’s blood having been the first sample used by her uncle, it was
impossible to hide the emotion.

  Clearing her throat, she continued. “The second round was with a sample from Rafe.” The next slide showed a second model that appeared considerably different from the one using Reade’s blood. In this one the left side seemed fine, but the right side didn’t exist. It was blunted at a point where there should have been an extension. “Again, a failure. As was round three, derived from a sample of Gabe’s blood, shown here.”

  The final cell to appear seemed not to have a bottom.

  “Thanks Lawrie,” Serge said as the lights turned on. “At this point we believe we can create an antidote utilizing fresh samples from Reade, Rafe, and Gabe. We are uncertain to the timing with which the antidote would need to be administered in order for it to be effective.”

  “I still have concerns about this idea.” Selene’s voice came from the back of the room.

  Oz smirked, reaching up to rub his cheek as he turned with the rest of the room to gaze upon the lovely Ms. Kittery, an accountant by day who fancied herself a scientist by night.

  This was not the first time she’d slipped into one of the briefing meetings and offered her opinion on something that did not involve her and, Oz was certain, irritated the real scientists in the room. This smoldering fire of annoyance was one he quite enjoyed stoking.

  Ever the calm and understanding leader, if not ruthlessly sharp and thoughtful about every step, Serge motioned toward Selene. “Good evening, Kit and thank you for joining us. What concerns you?”

  “It would seem to me, and there’s no need for anyone to remind me that I’m not a scientist…” She turned a pointed glare toward Oz, and he grinned. “It would seem that creating an antidote might do more harm. Will this antidote be universal and work on all three blood types or will we need three separate antidotes? In which case how will we know which one to administer? What happens if the antidote is administered too late? Would we be creating a more horrible situation for these individuals? Would death simply be a kinder alternative?”

  She actually did have good questions, and it wasn’t lost on Oz that they were moral questions rather than scientific, but wasn’t the morality of an experiment a tremendous weight in determining its worth?