He took a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling slowly before he began. “You know I have money. A great deal of money.” He shrugged. “It’s easy enough to accumulate when you are as old as I am. A stock purchase here, some land bought there, it adds up over the decades.” He shrugged again. “It’s nice to have but the wealth doesn’t really matter that much to me. I enjoy being able to do as I please but I don’t feel the need to advertise my status or wealth. I never really have done.”
Sam nodded. She knew that for him the money was just a tool, something to be used to achieve his goal or need and not an end in itself. He’d grown up in rather privileged circumstances and didn’t feel the compulsion to ‘better himself’ that someone from a less advantageous background might. He wasn’t greedy or avaricious. And he didn’t feel the need to show off his wealth though he liked top quality clothes and fancy cars for the comfort and fun they provided.
She knew all that and said as much.
He agreed. “I enjoy my comforts. I’ve never claimed otherwise. I have my hedonistic moments and I freely admit I’m more than a bit of a sensualist. Good clothing, yes; I admit I like to look good. I’ve never minded admiring glances from the ladies. And I like fine dining and excellent service. But I also like hamburgers and street fairs. I’m not insulted if a stranger speaks to me on the street to ask directions.”
He looked out over the black ocean. “Falcon doesn’t feel that way. She insists that as vampires we’re supposed to be above the rest of the world. She believes that I need to stay at places like the Regent Beverly Wiltshire, not for the comfort it offers but for the status attached to it. She is the daughter of the vampire who rules the Pacific coast. She has a certain rank and position that need to be maintained. My fondness for declining Art Deco hostels and midnight strolls along public beaches doesn’t appeal to her. So to make her happy, I settled into Beverly Hills instead of Santa Monica and lived the life of a prince rather than a bohemian.” Sadness, longing, and confusion tinted his voice, deepening it. “And I don’t really know how it happened.”
They were nearing the boardwalk and he lifted Samantha onto a wall. Dusting the sand from her feet, he placed her shoes back on, taking his time buckling the various rhinestone straps and green ribbons that secured them to her feet. He set her on the ramp leading up to the boardwalk before he put on his own shoes and unrolled his pants’ legs. He didn’t speak again until they had passed the enclosed Victorian carousel.
Surrounded by the lights and amusements of the boardwalk, he took her hand again. “I’m not sure how I allowed her take over my life that way.”
This time it was Sam who shrugged. “You loved her.”
Cole agreed. “Yes. I did. But I’m afraid I was so desperate for her affection that I subjugated myself to her completely. I gave up everything I wanted in hopes of assuring her happiness.” He rested on the boardwalk rail, leaning into the gentle ocean breeze.
Sam wrapped herself around his left arm. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. Lovers are supposed to care about each other more or less equally. She took advantage of you, Cole. She used your love and your generous nature for her own ends. She just took; she never gave anything back.”
Cole looked beyond her out to sea. “She never loved me.”
Sam didn’t need to be linked to him to know how deeply that admission hurt. But she couldn’t contradict him, not when it was the truth. “No, she didn’t,” she whispered in soft, sorrowful agreement.
He didn’t respond right away. He gripped the rail and looked out at nothing. The wood under his fingers slowly splintered as he squeezed it. It hurt Sam to watch his pain. A muscle in his jaw jumped. “She never gave a damn about me,” he hissed through tightly clenched teeth.
Sam opened her mouth but nothing came out. How did you comfort someone who’d found their love was an empty sham and they’d been used over and over again? Helplessness wrapped her in cords that made her face burn and her chest hurt. So much for her oath that she could make him happy if he was a real person. She couldn’t even find a word of solace to give him. She was useless.
She looked down where her arms were wrapped around his and wondered why she was even in his world. There wasn’t anything she could offer him. Her eyes stung and the back of her throat felt thick with tears for him. Swallowing didn’t ease the tightness or stop the bitter liquid that flooded her mouth. She bit her lip as her tears overflowed. It was ridiculous; he was the one in pain and she was the one crying. How the hell was that going to help anything?
Fingers that had the strength to splinter seasoned wood curled under her chin, tenderly lifting her face. A gentle thumb brushed across the fragile skin beneath her eye, spreading the moisture of her tears across her cheek. “For me,” he whispered. “These are for me.” He disentangled his arm from her hold. “And it isn’t the first time you’ve cried for me.”
Her cheeks felt so hot she was certain they glowed in the dark. She turned her head away but he gently urged her to look at him. “Don’t be ashamed. It’s beautiful.” His thumbs drew tiny circles on her hot skin. “I doubt if anyone has cried for me since my mother died.” His lavender eyes were dark with sorrow. “Falcon never did. She cried to manipulate me or to fool me into believing she needed me.” The tiniest glow of anger appeared amid the sorrow. “But she never shed a single tear for anything I might be feeling.”
He looked down at her in silence for a long moment. Then his lips curled slightly and some of the pain eased from his eyes. “Can you have any doubts now why I want to explore whatever this connection is between us? In over a century and a half no one has cared enough about me to shed a single tear. At least, not until I met you. I matter to you, Samantha Bailey, and that’s why you matter so very much to me.”
He glanced back toward the shore and the little hotel he was so enamored with. “Yes. It’s time I felt that again. So, will you let me show how I’d actually like to live my life? Will you share that with me for a little while?”
Her throat still clogged with tears and her cheeks flaming red, she couldn’t speak but she nodded confidently. She’d live the fantasy a bit longer. If it helped him, she’d be happy to commit herself to insanity for a little while more.
Chapter Seven
The Hotel California was everything Cole remembered. Sam fell in love with the place instantly. The Regent Beverly Wiltshire had been beautiful, luxurious and, once the excitement of it had worn off, completely intimidating. Sam lived in fear of breaking something in its opulent confines. She was sure the vases full of flowers alone cost more than the rent on her apartment back in Odessa. She tiptoed through the rooms, wondering how much the sheet they’d torn with overly enthusiastic lovemaking had cost Cole. She was afraid to touch anything. She had no such fears in their new rooms and her lingering sense of anxiety vanished in their quaint homeliness.
A cluster of two and three-story stucco buildings dating from the twenties, the Hotel California resembled a set of picturesque apartments far more than a hotel. Inside felt as much a home as the outside suggested it would. The pale paint on the walls was thick from decades of additions, layer piling up on layer. The doors were solid wood, substantial and varnished to a bright shine like the hardwood floors. Casement windows opened outward, inviting Sam to lean out and call down to her new neighbors. The morning sun that shown in cheerfully on the daybed and couch in the living room was easily blocked by slatted wooden blinds, assuring Cole’s comfort. The small kitchen was divided from the living area by an open arch and a narrow bar just right for holding meals for two. A tiny kitchenette set gave more room for eating or just sitting and talking.
The cabinets were stocked with heavy white stoneware dishes and steel cookware for the little four-burner stove. A tiny stereo system that could be heard throughout the whole suite rested on the open shelf just to the right of the white porcelain sink. Across the narrow hall, the bathroom was old-fashioned, sporting none of the extravagant amenities of the Regent Beverly Wil
tshire. The antique tub had a shower, though, was big enough for both of them and Cole’s toothbrush fit nicely beside hers in the old sea-green porcelain holder mounted on the wall.
The bedroom would have fit in the bath at the Regent Beverly Wiltshire, but was much more pleasing to the couple. From the king-sized bed that nearly filled the narrow room, Sam could watch little birds playing in the bright bougainvillea that covered the walls of the suite across the courtyard and climbed across the rails of her balcony. Cole could dream the sunny mornings away, safe from the unpleasant rays of the sun while voices from the other inhabitants floated up as they went about their lives, unconcerned about the vampire or his otherworldly mistress that lived in their midst.
* * * *
Cole slid a large suitcase across the floor of the bedroom. He’d brought it and an identical companion up when they’d checked in but aside from grabbing some clothes for the day, they hadn’t bothered to unpack yet. The two cases contained everything he’d managed to sneak out of their fancy hotel when he’d left Falcon. He’d gathered anything that marked Sam’s residency at the Regent Beverly Wiltshire and taken it away with him. He’d even been so thorough as to empty the trash into a single bag and take it with him. He’d left most of his belongings as a consequence but didn’t seem worried or regretful.
“She can’t conceive of someone like me wanting to be somewhere like this.” He sipped the cup of coffee Sam had made as the setting sun painted gilded light on the walls of the apartment across the way, turning the pink bougainvillea to flame.
“She never understood me. She never even tried.” The peculiar sorrow that often encased him returned. It sat heavily on his shoulders for several minutes before he shook it off.
He picked up a briefcase and dropped it on the bed. He popped the locks as he confided, “While I like the Bohemian lifestyle, I don’t particularly enjoy working for a living. So....” He pulled a stack of cash from the case and popped it into Sam’s unresisting hands. “I made sure we wouldn’t have to worry about that.” He opened a suitcase and explored its contents. As he dug about in Sam’s new collection of shoes, he directed her to stash the money he’d given her somewhere she could access easily. He pulled a little white satin bag from inside a shoe and dumped the very expensive shoe ornaments inside onto the bed. “Ah ha! Perfect!” He then pulled a flat leather bag from his briefcase. Sam couldn’t quite believe it. He couldn’t be doing what she thought he was.
With easy grace, he halved the contents of the leather bag into the satin one.
“Cole?” Sam asked in consternation. The money had been shock enough, but this…!
He dropped the satin bag into her hand. “Keep that with you. Carry it in your pocket or stuffed in your bra. The only time I want you without that is when you’re naked with me.”
Sam blinked a couple of time. “That’s a fortune in diamonds, Cole.”
His smiled glittered as brightly as the gems he’d just entrusted into her keeping. “Yes. That’s the point. If we get separated for whatever reason, I want you to have enough funds to get somewhere safe. Remember that little city in the Yucatan that I lived in back in the Forties? The house I have there?”
She nodded wordlessly. It was another of his favorite places and, like Hotel California, he returned to it time after time as the decades passed.
“Go there if something happens. Call my lawyer in Meridian. I know you remember the number. He’ll ask you for a code phrase. Give him my father’s birthday and he’ll take care of you.”
With a frown, Sam protested, “I remember Enrique Alvarado but I don’t remember anything about a code phrase.”
He winked at her. “I set it up on my way to join you last night at the pier. Falcon doesn’t know about that house or Enrique or the code. It wouldn’t have appealed to her. It’s too far from the fashionable parts of Mexico. You’ll be safe there, should you need a bolthole. If we become separated, I’ll join you there as soon as possible and if I can’t for whatever reason....” He didn’t finish the sentence, and Sam shivered at the implications. “Well, you’ll be safe there. Mexico isn’t part of Wynn’s duchy and overall Falcon hates it. She much prefers Europe or the Caribbean.” His eyes sparkled as he chided Sam’s reluctance to accept the jewels. “Don’t glare at me, my dearest. I feel better knowing I’ve made provisions for you.”
He grinned, breaking the heavy atmosphere. “You aren’t the only one in this apartment with a strong streak of pragmatism! I can be every bit as sensible as you.” He raised his hand, as she would have protested. “And I can be just as hardheaded! So spare us both and just accept that I have some small rights to assuring your protection.” He pulled her close, plucking the diamonds from her hand and tucking them in her pants pocket. “And I need to know I’ve done what I can to keep you safe. Please let me do this.” Entreaty softened the sparkle in his violet eyes.
“Oh, alright,” she agreed sullenly though she wasn’t really upset with him. He knew that she had to maintain a certain amount of objection for her own sense of worth and simply kissed her before easing her back onto the bed.
* * * *
With clever fingers and talented lips, Cole expressed his gratitude in his favorite way, seeking out Sam’s most sensitive spots to lick, kiss, and knead. She didn’t protest when he knocked the briefcase onto the floor spilling cash across the floorboards or when he shredded her T-shirt and bra in his need to get at her skin. He’d bought them after all. His bag of diamonds joined the money on the floor as he hastened to remove her jeans.
Cole ran his hands over her, searching. He liked to run his tongue over the marks time and hard living had put on her body. He was fascinated by her scars. It seemed that in this literature-inspired world of beautiful men and women with perfect bodies, scars were all of the Hollywood sort. They existed just for show and marked a man as a villain. They had no substance behind them.
He ran a hand along the inside of her thigh; he loved the little patch of crumpled skin there, a scar acquired from the hot exhaust pipe of her brother’s motorcycle when she was fifteen. He looked at the scar, so close to the crux of her legs, and grinned. He ran his hand over the dark curls above it before he stood again. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it away before lying down beside her. His body was solid and reassuringly real beneath her as he pulled her atop him so she could lay her head on his chest. His skin was warm and perfect. And he smelled like home.
The fashionably worn denim of his jeans was soft against her legs, the fly rough against her stomach and she could feel his arousal growing against her.
He sighed in pleasure. “I want to make love to you, dearest. I want to stay here and make love to you for days and days. I may never let you out of my arms again.” He turned them so they were lying on their sides and draped his long leg across hers and propped his head on one arm. He considered her seriously for a few moments, sliding his other hand over her shoulder, her arm. “You’re so beautiful.”
She smiled at him and shook her head. He always went on like that. Always telling her how beautiful she was, how wonderful she felt, how good she smelled, how delicious she tasted, how sweet her voice was. It wasn’t true, of course, but it didn’t matter because he felt that it was. That was how he perceived her.
She wondered what she had done to deserve such a man for even a little while. Now, after four days in her company, when he could start over with a glorious woman like Falcon or any other beauty he wanted, he’d picked her. He wanted to find out if he could love her. She thought her heart would burst.
“Why are you crying, dearest?” he asked, catching one crystalline tear on his forefinger. He brought it to his lips. “It tastes of the sea,” he said.
“Cole, I’m afraid.” She ran her hand over his perfect face. What if he wasn’t real? What if he vanished? She forced the thought away. She had learned to grab what was offered a long time ago and she decided she’d grab this chance.
“I love you so much,” she admitt
ed. “I wish there were some way I could explain to you how much I love you.” In the depths of the night holding him as he dealt with his feelings for Falcon and swore he would build a new life, she’d admitted to herself that she’d fallen for him as hard as it was possible for her to fall. She loved him and there was no way around it. Real or not, she was in love with the man. There was no running from it and she wasn’t the sort to hide. She might as well tell him so. He’d find out the first time he bit her anyway.
He kissed her, rolling her onto her back, bringing his body more completely over hers. “I know, dearest. I know.” He kissed the formerly pristine expanse of her neck. It now carried a series of bite marks and bruises. “I do know how very much you love me. It’s the most precious gift I’ve ever been given.” He fingered a lock of her hair where it lay on the pillow. “I know that you have trouble believing I’m real. You’re afraid I could be snatched away at any moment, but you’re still willing to love me.”
He smiled at her. “Don’t be afraid; I’m not going anywhere. Some divine power thinks we should be together like this. It gave me back my life and brought you to me. I think that proves we need to at least see if we can build something.” He kissed her deeply, with a tender passion that grew with each second. He pressed his body against her until she could feel every curve of him. “We fit together so nicely.”
Sam wasn’t sure if he meant their bodies, or was talking about something more.
“I’m nearly certain that you were built just for me, you fit me so well,” he added. “I don’t know if I love you as deeply as you love me, Samantha, but I’m sure I’m more than half-way in love with you. Let me find out if I can fall completely in love with you. I promise not to disappear if you’ll just risk loving me and let me find if I can return that wonderful thing you feel for me.” He kissed her again.
Vampire Encounters - Second Chances Page 10