“Hmm?”
“Rambling. You’re doing it. Stop. We have things to take care of.” He let her slide down his hard body to the thing that needed taking care of, rubbing against the thin wisp of her underwear.
Sharp rushes of electricity pricked her skin—it was like nothing she’d ever felt before. Each inch of her flesh lit up like a brush fire. Her nipples brushed sensuously against the material of her fuzzy nightgown. Each scrape of them felt like a thousand. “Ohhhh, right. The feeding, hot paranormal sex to the max thing,” she mumbled, fully willing to experience whatever that meant—even with legs that were hairier than your average Yeti.
Heath carried her into her bedroom, stepping over the splintered shards of wood from her door with care. “There’s that and then there’re other things.And they have to happen now.” He dropped her on the bed and held up two fingers. “Give me two minutes to shower,” he grunted, stripping his clothes off with impatient fingers.
Wanda’s sigh mirrored his impatient fingers. “Hurry,” she grunted back boldly.
And he did hurry. In moments, Heath was back, hooking his thumbs in her panties and tugging them off, his face dark with lust. “I need you.”
His words made her shiver with an almost violent shake. They were hot with an urgent need threading through them that made having him inside her not just a desire, but a burning necessity.
Heath sank between her thighs, dragging her to the edge of the bed with hands that were insistent and rushed, cupping her ass and bringing her flush to his lips. He wasted no time burying his face between her legs, parting her flesh, now wet and throbbing, opening his mouth over her and swiping her clit with his silken hot tongue.
She reared upward at the contact so sharp and sweet, magnified by whatever this crazy need was that assaulted her every nerve ending. Heath dragged his fingers through the lips of her sex, stroking her, licking her, as her breath became ragged, wheezing in and out of her lungs. Her fingers gripped his hair, tightening their hold with frantic abandon. She came hard when his tongue danced over her swollen clit, clamping her thighs around his head and bucking against his mouth. Colors flashed behind her eyelids, waves of breath stealing, crashing bolts of lightning assaulted her.
Heath gave her no time to recuperate, he rose before her in all his powerful, sculpted glory. His wide chest heaved, his thick thighs moved him toward her, the muscles clenching and tight. He tore her T-shirt over her head and was on top of her in an instant. Their flesh met in a flash of sizzling contact. Heath spread her legs wide, throwing them up over his hips, pressing the tip of his hard cock at her entrance.
He didn’t linger, but instead thrust upward into her with a searing plunge of his rock-hard shaft, driving into her with a force that sent them both rocking upward.
Wanda clung to Heath, clenched her teeth at the riveting sensations that washed over her, one after the other. Everything was magnified tenfold, each flaming thrust of his cock intensified as his hips moved against hers.
She caught the flash of his incisors only briefly before he found a place on her neck just below her ear and sunk into it. Her neck arched upward against the smooth enamel, frantically seeking the pleasure his bite brought her. Her body became enflamed, hot, anxious, vividly aware of every square inch of it as he drank from her. Her hands went from his shoulders to his head, gripping his hair, tearing her fingers through it.
Wanda let out a hoarse scream of satisfaction, releasing her pleasure with a howl, while bucking up hard against him. Her hips crashed against his, rocking violently while Heath drove into her.
Heath’s growl of completion was feral, reverberating throughout her room, echoing in her ears. He sank into her one last time, his teeth still embedded in her neck, then collapsed on top of her in a heaving, massive tangle of limbs.
Their harsh breathing mingled until Wanda couldn’t tell who was gasping harder.
Holy. Paranormal. Wonking.
Hell to the yeah.
If sex as a human with Heath had been awesome, well, there were no words for sex as a werevamp. A werevamp . . . she was a werevamp. Wanda Schwartz was no longer human—or dying. Don’t forget the dying.
She wasn’t dying, and then, out of the blue a thought occurred to her. She’d told Warren Snelling he had a peanut dick with the idea she was biting the dust.
Hoo boy. Her next high school reunion was going to be very interesting.
Yet warmth spread throughout her limbs anyway, a sense of peace for her choice settled in every pore.
She had time on her side now.Time to learn about Heath.Time to let herself fall all the way for him.
And that was so damned good.
Wanda squirmed beneath him, sighing when her nipples rubbed against his skin. “Wow. I say yay for paranormal sex to the max.”
He nuzzled her cheek with his nose. “Yeah, it was worth giving up the Whoppers for.”
“Oh, but was it worth giving up the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for, and beer, too? I dunno, seems like übersacrifice, if you ask me.” She kissed his yummy lips and smiled flirtatiously.
He mock-sighed. “Yeah, there is that. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty. All this sacrifice was a lot. I mean, we are talking about Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.”
She swatted him on his shoulder with a playful nudge. “You can’t take it back.”
His eyes glittered wolfishly—literally. “Sucks to be me, huh?”
“I guess that all depends on how you look at it. It could be worse.”
“There is nothing—nothing, I say—that’s worse than giving up Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.” He sighed again for good measure. “Somehow, I don’t know exactly how, you’ll have to make it up to me. It won’t be easy.You have a long row to hoe, Miss Schwartz, but it absolutely has to be done.”
Wanda wriggled out from beneath him, pushing him back down on the bed, smiling seductively. She straddled his hips, and leaned forward to rest her chin on his. “I promise to work very hard to make saving my life well worth your eternity.”
Heath’s arms came up around her, pressing her close to him. “That means you have to be all involved with me,” he joked.
Yeah.
Yeah, it did.
Big, honkin’ girly sigh.
Wanda grinned, sliding down to rest her cheek on his chest. “You think you can survive being involved with me? I’m a lot of work. I ramble a lot. I make lists for everything. I read tons of romance novels. I like order. Oh, and I have the caa-raziest friends like evah—”
Heath stopped her words with a kiss. “Before we go any further, you have to feed, young lady.” He pointed to his neck with a grin.
A heated rush of anticipation slithered up her spine as she repositioned herself at his neck.
Heath’s hand came up to cup her chin. “But wait, this means we jump into the involved pool together.You ready?” He held out his other hand to her.
And Wanda took it, letting him entwine their fingers into one fist. “Yeah,” she whispered on a blissful sigh. “I definitely am.”
EPILOGUE
Seven Months, a Baby, and Two Werevamps Later . . .
“So how’s the night dweller relief effort going? Did’ja get any more responses to the ad this week?” Marty asked Wanda as they all sat around Greg and Nina’s dining room table, cooing at baby Hollis, now just a couple of weeks old. Marty ran a tender hand over her dark head while she slept in her carrier as only babies can.
Wanda smiled when Heath reached for her hand, still amazed at the myriad emotions he continued to create almost eight months after they’d met. “It’s going slow, but sure.With no record of most of the clans created by this logger sire, it’s been really difficult, but little by little word’s getting out.” It had been Nina and Greg’s suggestion to try and seek out the remainder of Heath’s clan, and subsequent branches, in an attempt to help them adjust to being human again.
Heath suggested they place cryptic personal ads in some of the largest newspapers all over the country r
eading: B-Positive. Have you rediscovered fun in the sun? Traded your stake for a steak recently? Finding that leaving the graveyard shift has left you feeling more alive than ever? Don’t worry—we have a smorgasbord of volunteers ready and waiting to help you get your blood pumping again.
They’d all been skeptical anyone would actually reply, but it was the beginnings of a desperate attempt to reach out to stranded ex-vampires and help them acclimate. Find them jobs, help them earn a living in the human world.
Their phone had been silent for a very long month until they’d received their first call. And then another—to date, they had twenty-five ex-vampires working for Greg and Svetlanna at Fango, and with Marty and Keegan at Pack Cosmetics, with the hope there’d be more to come.
Heath had decided, to sticky-lips Linda Fisher’s dismay, to leave her as his Bobbie-Sue rep when Marty’d offered him a position in marketing, because he was so in tune with new and innovative ways to sell color wheels in markets corporate had never even considered.
Wanda put her pinky in little Hollis’s tiny fist, letting her latch onto it with her firm grip. There wasn’t a day that had gone by since she’d been turned that she didn’t feel blessed beyond her fair share. Seeing Hollis born was just one of the many blessings bestowed upon her. Her birth had been a typical sicko triplet from hell experience.
Marty’d gone into labor at Hogan’s while Nina gagged, because her water had broken in the middle of the diner floor. The ride to the hospital had been a series of Nina screaming at Wanda to hurry the fuck up before Marty spewed baby everywhere, while Marty howled at the top of her lungs that this kind of pain was soooo not in her color wheel.
Little Hollis never made it to the carefully planned birthing room back in Buffalo—she did make it to the parking lot of the Dollar Store in Hackensack, where Wanda pulled to a screeching halt because Marty had declared someone had to help her give birth to the watermelon pushing its way out of her.
Hollis made her entrance in the backseat of Wanda’s sky blue convertible, with a paler than usual auntie Nina holding Marty’s shoulders from behind while yelling, “Get it the fuck out, Wanda, so she’ll stop all this caterwauling!” And take-charge Wanda made a mental list of the medical shows she’d seen in the hopes it would help her to navigate a live birth.
Wanda smiled over at Marty. “I can’t believe how beautiful this baby is, and all that dark hair . . .” It stuck up in thick, coarse patches all over Hollis’s tiny head.
Nina chucked Hollis under the chin, shaking the rattle she’d just given her today. “She looks like her auntie Nina, don’t you, you little carpet clinger?”
Marty swatted Nina’s hand. “She does not either look like you. She looks like her daddy.”
Keegan grinned, planting a kiss on Hollis’s forehead. “Yeah, but she’s got her mother’s nonstop yap—especially when she’s screaming at four in the morning.”
Heath’s laughter filled Wanda’s ears. They did that a lot. Laughed, talked, and had hot, paranormal to the max sex. He planted a warm kiss on her lips before going into the kitchen, probably to check on Archibald and Lou. Nina had finally told her grandmother Lou, with the help of Marty and Wanda, about her and Greg, and she’d taken it far better than even Wanda had expected—despite her deeply rooted Catholic beliefs.
And then, at one of their monthly gatherings at Wanda’s, Lou met Archibald—and it’d been on ever since. Lou was teaching Archibald how to cuss and play poker, and Arch was teaching her how to distinguish good caviar with just one whiff.
“Well, my friend, I’d say you got your HEA,” Marty said, her genuine happiness for Wanda lilting her words.
“Her what?” Heath called from around the corner of the kitchen doorway, his handsomely chiseled features bemused.
“HEA, Heath,” Nina berated him from across the room. “Happily ever after. Jesus, you guys have only been together almost eight months, and Wanda hasn’t introduced you to the unrealistic world of romance novels? Oh, wait, sorry, women’s fiction. An HEA is what happens in all of them at the end. Everyone rides off into the sunset with their duke on a horse or some millionaire in his bad-assed Ken-car.”
Wanda chucked her napkin at Nina, rolling of her eyes. “Again, for like the eight hundred millionth time—was there much in those books that wasn’t true? No. No, I don’t believe there was. If I hadn’t done all that reading, you’d still be wandering the streets pissing and moaning about having to drink blood and live forever. And actually, Heath hasn’t seen many of them because if you remember, Ms. Negative, I told you I read them because they took me someplace I wouldn’t ever be able to go.They let me dream—live out fantasies I’d never be able to live out in my real life. Experience adventures I couldn’t possibly squeeze into one lifetime. I don’t have to do that anymore. I have many lifetimes to live, and, well, let’s just say the fantasy is fulfilled. Plus, I haven’t had the time to read much.” She gave Nina a smug neener neener neener smile.
And that was true. She didn’t have time to read much anymore. Between her and Heath’s rescue relief efforts and her job with Bobbie-Sue, not to mention her nights were now filled with more romance novelish stuff than you could shake a stick at, top that off with learning to be a werevamp, and it seemed her life had suddenly become a very full, exciting new journey.
But she was happier than she’d ever been. She’d found what she’d missed out on in her one and only relationship with George. What she’d always hoped existed, but hadn’t planned on finding while she’d been so busy figuring out who she wanted to be as an individual.
Today, almost eight months since they’d met, and sharing her house for four of those months now,Wanda was more in love with Heath than she ever thought was humanly, er, undeadly possible. He’d even helped her cross a couple of things off her Fuck It list with the promise they’d tick off as many items as they could, and even add more—because they had plenty of time. Heath had enhanced her life—made it richer in tone and quality, encouraged her to express herself physically and mentally, and most importantly, he encouraged her to pursue whatever made her happiest.
And she had.
Just two weeks ago she’d put all of her list-making to good use in a very unusual way—she’d typed “The End” to a romance novel titled Being Paranormal for Dummies and had shipped it off to an agent. A week ago that agent had called her and told her she wanted to represent her, and just yesterday, her new agent had called to tell her there was this publisher who apparently liked the crazy in her concept and wanted to buy it.
So that meant there was just one thing left to do.
Wanda rose and planted a kiss on Hollis’s head. She grabbed her purse beside the baby carrier and dug out two slips of paper and a pen. Heath came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “What’s that?” he whispered in her ear, his warm breath making her shiver.
Wanda turned in his arms and held up the paper, casting a teasing smile his way. “This”—she held up the first piece of paper—“is an an IOU.”
“For?”
“A lifetime supply of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. You know, for when you build up your tolerance level again.”
Heath smiled, reaching for the paper, but Wanda snatched it back, shaking her head. “Nuh-uh. You only get it on one condition.”
Marty, Nina, Greg, Keegan, Lou, and Archibald had all gathered in the dining room.Wanda winked at them. “You only get it if you agree to, you know, mate for life with me.”
There was a cumulative gasp from their friends.
Heath reached into the pocket of his jeans. “Funny you should say that, Miss Schwartz . . .” He held up the diamond engagement ring, letting it sparkle under the light of the chandelier.
Tears stung Wanda’s eyes. Her answer was a kiss, filled with the amazing happiness he’d brought her.
“What’s the second piece of paper?” he whispered.
Wanda shook it out and held it up.
He smiled a knowing grin. “Aha! T
he infamous Fuck It list. Whatcha doin’ with that?”
She pointed to her newly revised first entry. It read: spend the rest of her lives with Heath. She’d rewritten some of her list, and during month five with Heath, she’d added her wish to be with him until whatever happened when the end of eternity came.
Just as she was going to cross it off, Heath grabbed the pen and did it for her, winking at her.
Nina came up behind them and thumped Heath on the back. “Nice job, dude. Uh, Wanda? Just a heads-up. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—no fucking yellow bridesmaid dresses.”
Marty shook her head in disgust, scooping Hollis up and cradling her in her arms. “Oh, hush, Nina.We’ll wear whatever color you like, Wanda—with a smile on our faces and Nina’s big yap duct-taped if we have to.”
Nina began to protest, but Wanda left Heath’s arms to step between the two of them. “You know, you two are like the children I never had. Knock it off, or I’ll show you werevamp beats loser werewolf and lame-assed vampire every time.” She followed that up with a wide grin.
Nina tugged a lock of Wanda’s hair and snickered. “Cockier and cockier, I tell ya. Every day you get a little feistier. Is this the shit I’m going to have to put up with for an eternity?”
“And then some,” Wanda replied, pinching Nina’s cheek with a playful tweak.
Plenty of then-somes.
Dakota Cassidy lives for a good laugh in life and in her writing. In fact, she almost loves a good giggle as much as she loves hair products and that’s saying something.
Her goals in life are simple (like, really simple): banish the color yellow forever; create world peace via hot rollers and Aqua Net; and finally, nab every tiara in the land by competing in the Miss USA, Miss Universe, and MissWorld pageants, then sweeping them in a stunning trifecta of much duct tape and Vaseline usage, all in just under a week’s time. All while she writes really fun books!
She loves people, loves to chat, and would love it if you’d come say hello to her on the Yahoo! group of “Accidental Fans.” Join Dakota and friends in the chaos by sending an email to [email protected], or visit her website at www.dakotacassidy.com.
The Accidental Human Page 31