by Morgan Fox
Zombie Seduction
Tristan Davis is shocked to discover that his life has become a true nightmare. Waking up in a morgue alongside the dead was enough to set his head on a tailspin. Forced to find out what happened to him, he goes in search of Lydia, his childhood best friend, and the woman he’s always loved.
Lydia Lockhart is elated to learn that Tristan is still a walking, talking member of society, but quickly realizes that there’s something different about him. A searing passion from his mysterious resurrection engulfs her, and she makes it her mission to find the cure for what is slowly killing him.
Neither Tristan nor Lydia ever imagined that they’d have the chance to fall in love. With time ticking against them, will they find love before it's too late?
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal
Length: 21,261 words
ZOMBIE SEDUCTION
Morgan Fox
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
ZOMBIE SEDUCTION
Copyright © 2013 by Morgan Fox
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-943-1
First E-book Publication: May 2013
Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
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This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.
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This is Morgan Fox’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Fox’s right to earn a living from her work.
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DEDICATION
For my wonderful husband who has filled my life with so much joy. Thank you for being my everlasting love and for offering subjects that become my stories.
To Lydia Mazza, without you this book may have taken on a very different appearance. You are a dedicated friend and I appreciate you more than words can express. Thank you.
ZOMBIE SEDUCTION
MORGAN FOX
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
It sucked to be dead.
At least that was what Tristan Davis believed he was. Waking up in the morgue as cold as the steel beneath him was his first indication. The second had been the room full of dead bodies.
A foul taste erupted in his mouth. He wasn’t prepared to be dead. He’d always imagined it’d be more permanent.
What the hell is going on?
Tristan sat up on the table, swung his legs over the edge, and stood. The white sheet that once covered him was now the only form of clothing he had. He draped the sheet around his hips and began inspecting his body. He noticed the deep blue coloration of his nail beds and the pasty white hue of his skin. Surprisingly he wasn’t stiff, and he didn’t feel like he was dead. Not that he had a ton of experience in the matter, but he did know the sensation of his own heart beating and his lungs taking in air, which they were.
Umm, dead people don’t breathe.
Tristan stumbled over to the shiny steel cabinet and stared at his reflection. His blue-gray eyes were bright, but there was a slight discoloration under them. His dark-brown hair was slicked back and wet from the cleansing bath the mortician had most likely given him.
He shuddered at the thought of someone touching him while he was unaware.
The last thing he remembered was staring into cobalt-blue eyes and the warm bite of something on his lips. Then he woke up dead.
Shit! What am I going to do?
He gripped the edge of the metal gurney. It wasn’t like he could simply walk out the front door. He was dead in the eyes of everyone around him. He assumed so anyway. Why else would he be hanging out naked with the dead?
Speaking of naked, he needed clothes. With a quick glance around, he saw a lab coat hanging on a rack beside the gray double swinging doors that led into the morgue. He needed to get out of here as soon as possible. The last thing he wanted was to come face-to-face with the mortician or anyone else who assumed he was deceased.
But where can I go?
Lydia Lockhart’s beautiful face flashed in his mind. As always, her captivating amber eyes were warm and welcoming. The soft sweep of her brown hair hung below her shoulders, teasing her olive skin.
His heart suddenly sped up as he pictured her perfectly. Lydia was the one woman he’d always loved, but couldn’t have. Her family wouldn’t allow it. Raised strict catholic, she’d never been able to spend time with him alone, and he’d never had enough nerve to express just how he felt about her.
Lydia had been his childhood friend, and even though they were now in their twenties, she still followed her parents’ rules. Like him, Lydia was about to graduate college, and he’d hoped she’d finally move out of her parents’ house. Then he could’ve had a chance to date her, to really get to know her.
He swallowed the lump in his throat.
Looks like I waited too long. I should’ve taken a chance.
He closed his eyes and sighed, hanging his head.
A cheerful memory gripped his heart. A warm smile tugged at his lips as his mind wandered back to when they were ten. He’d taken her by the hand and stolen their first kiss. Lydia blushed a deep shade of rose. Never once had she judged him for the sloppiness of his approach and style. With an encouraging smile, she’d sweetly giggled and patted him on the shoulder.
Lydia’s innocence had been the one thing he loved most about her. Her heart was the other. She was the first person to sacrifice her own desires to help others, and she did it witho
ut the need for reward or praise.
He knew that if he could find a way out of here, she would help him figure out what the hell had happened to him.
* * * *
Lydia wiped her damp cheek with the back of her hand. The hollowness in her heart was nearly unbearable. Life without Tristan seemed impossible. The boy that had been her everything and hadn’t even known it.
I missed my chance to be with him. Maybe if I told him how I felt, he might still be alive.
When her best friend Patty told her that Tristan had died, she didn’t believe her. The idea of a twenty-four-year-old dying from a heart attack was just too hard to fathom. Tristan had been the picture of health. His body was lean and muscular with gorgeous gray eyes that sparkled with a blue so deep the oceans couldn’t compete. Every ounce of him was beautiful.
She’d spent many nights dreaming of him. As her fantasy lover, she imagined waking up beside him, brushing his long dark hair out of his eyes, cradling his face as she kissed him. His clean-cut look and sweeping bangs always made her breathless.
Lydia spent more time wondering about a life with Tristan than she should’ve. Sometimes anger would eat away at her because she’d only been his best friend and not his lover. Even with those feelings of jealousy filling her heart, she’d never stopped wanting him.
With the millions of childhood memories they shared flooding her mind, she’d hoped that Tristan would finally see her as more than just a friend, but he hadn’t. His soft smile and warm gaze seemed to erode those feelings, reminding her that she wasn’t like other girls. She’d wanted only one man in her life and now that man was gone. She punched the pillow a dozen times, shifting her position in the bed. She couldn’t get comfortable. Tristan’s memory wouldn’t let her. She flipped onto her back, and the air was immediately sucked from her lungs.
Tristan stood at the foot of her bed, looming like a ghost. She gasped as he moved quickly to cover her mouth, stifling any chance she had to scream. But the truth was she couldn’t scream. She was too excited to see him, ghost or not.
Her arms came around him, and she sobbed. Her face nuzzled up against the crook of his neck, inhaling the musk scent that was all Tristan.
“Oh, God,” she mumbled. “Please tell me I’m not dreaming. Tell me you’re really here.” She sniffled. “And if I am dreaming, please don’t ever wake me.”
Holding her close, he stroked her hair. “Lydia,” he whispered against her ear. “I’m very much here, but I don’t understand how that’s possible.”
She stiffened at his answer and slowly leaned back. Visions of his wake plagued her mind. “Tristan, what happened?”
He shook his head, locking onto her gaze. His expression made her nervous. “I don’t know how to say this, but I think I’m dead.”
Lydia frowned. “I know,” she said. “I attended a vigil in your honor tonight.”
Her fingers played at the back of his neck, touching the soft strands of his hair. She’d dreamed of holding him this way. She didn’t want to let him go. She couldn’t.
“Shit,” he muttered, his entire body sagging against her. Then his gaze perked up. “Did a lot of people show up?”
She loosened her hold on him, sitting up straight in the bed. She arched a brow. “Really? You’re sitting on my bed, dead, I might add, and you want to know if you were popular?”
He shrugged. “Of course.”
She couldn’t help but smirk at his strange curiosity, but she also couldn’t blame him. She’d want to know, too. “Yes. Lots of people showed up. You were well liked.”
Tristan had always been well liked and popular, one of the reasons she’d stayed in the shadows of his life. But for whatever reason, he was here with her now.
He smiled broadly. The gleam in his eyes told her he was glad to know, but then his expression changed. “Lydia, I need to know what’s happening to me. How am I alive…but dead?”
Lydia knew it was scientifically impossible for Tristan to be alive, but she couldn’t deny he was talking and walking like he was. Unless his death had snapped something in her head and she was officially crazy or he was a zombie.
She shook off the notion.
“I need to figure out how I can still have a heartbeat and be breathing if I’m dead.”
The air caught in Lydia’s lungs. “Wait. What? You’re breathing?”
He grabbed her hand and placed it against his bare chest. The white lab coat he wore parted wide, revealing firm pectorals and smooth washboard abs. When her palm touched his flesh, she was stunned at how warm his body was. Then she felt the steady beat of his heart.
Her eyes rounded. “Tristan,” she gasped. “You’re not dead.” She licked her dry lips. “You can’t be.” She smiled. Her heart pounded wildly.
Tristan grinned. “Explain that to the mortician.”
Lydia’s mind reeled. She couldn’t believe what was happening. She’d thought she’d lost Tristan. Tears welled in her eyes as she cupped his face. “How did this happen?”
He leaned into her touch, and his reaction had her pulse racing. “I don’t know,” he said, his jaw flexing.
His tone sounded more like he did know, but was afraid to tell her. “Why do I get the impression you know more than you’re telling me?”
Tristan moistened his lips and slowly released a pent-up breath. “I remember something, but I don’t know if it’s my imagination, or just nonsense, or even reality.”
She took his hands in hers, squeezing gently. “Tell me.”
For a long moment he studied her, his eyes lingering on her mouth and then her eyes. Her body warmed. “I remember a woman,” he told her.
The feeling of ice water drenched her from head to toe. “Oh,” she breathed, pulling her hands away from him and placing them in her lap. She didn’t like hearing about another woman. Maybe he’d only come to her because he had no one else, and she really wasn’t his first choice at all.
He took her hands in his. “I don’t know who she is. I just remember her eyes. They were unnaturally blue, but I don’t remember anything more than that.”
Lydia swallowed, fighting to choke down the jealousy that flared inside her. She had no right to be jealous, but she was nonetheless. Tristan was too good of a person for her to not help him just because he wasn’t interested in her. She was just glad he was here now.
“Do you remember where you were last?”
* * * *
Tristan inhaled deeply. Lydia’s wildly intoxicating scent was killing him. Every time she touched him, he thought he would die. He chuckled to himself considering he was technically already dead. But judging from the excessive blood flow moving toward his cock, he knew he was very much alive.
The lab coat slit at his lap, and he was suddenly aware that his lengthening shaft was completely visible to her. He reached over and pulled the blanket over his lap. He knew he should be focused on finding out what happened to him, but he couldn’t get the desires firing in his head to smolder.
For the first time, he was in a bed with Lydia. Glancing down, he studied the way her legs stretched out, touching his. He groaned. Naked except for a measly lab coat, he couldn’t help but feel he had finally gotten a second chance.
He sucked in a breath as he looked into her eyes. She wore her soul in plain sight, and he prayed what he saw in those amber depths was true.
She’d been asking him questions, but he couldn’t focus on anything except the lust that ignited inside him like an inferno. He wanted Lydia, and he hadn’t realized just how much until the moment he thought he’d lost her forever. He knew they had right now, and he couldn’t guarantee tomorrow.
He tucked his hand into her hair, weaving his fingers in the silken strands. Her eyes swelled as he drew near. He felt her breath on his face.
“Tristan,” she breathed, her gaze jumping from his eyes to his mouth and then back again.
Before he knew what he was doing, he stood to lock the bedroom door, and then he moved back to the b
ed, pulling the blankets off her.
She wore a skimpy tank top and white panties. He trailed a hungry gaze from her pink-colored toenails, up lean legs, feminine hips, and over her firm round breasts, finally settling on her wide amber eyes.
“You are so beautiful, Lydia.” He cupped her face in his hands. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”
The touch of her skin against his turned his body inside out. Slowly she parted her legs, and he slid between them, guiding her down to lay flat on the bed. He held her close, pressing his body against hers. Her fingers trailed down his chest, unfastening the buttons that kept the lab coat on his body. She pushed it off his shoulders, and he shrugged free of it, tossing it to the floor.
“Oh, God,” she muttered as her breath quickened. “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe I thought I’d lost you.”
“Shh, baby. It’s okay. I’m here now.” He pressed his lips against hers, nibbling gently. “I almost didn’t get this chance.” He kissed her cheek, then the other. “I almost didn’t get to tell you how crazy I am about you. How much”—he pulled back, gazing into her eyes—“I need you, Lydia. I just never had the courage to tell you.”
Lydia whimpered. “I need you, too, Tristan.”
She pulled him against her, pressing her mouth over his. Her fingers dug into the flesh of his back, her nails scraping over his skin. He hissed. The sensation made him feel so alive. He needed to feel her warm body against him, needed to be buried inside her.
He trailed his fingers up her hips, grasping the fabric of her shirt, hiking it up over her head. He stared down at her small but perfect breasts, and his mouth watered. He’d wanted to taste her for as long as he could remember. He wasn’t about to waste another moment.