“No. I think I would have remembered.” After a brief pause, he added, “Why do you ask?”
“It’s just the way you…I don’t know. You act like you know me. Like there’s some joke I’m not privy to.”
His face dropped the smile and he adopted a serious tone. “I’m not joking with you. And I’m sorry if I make you feel…uncomfortable.”
“No, it’s just me. I spook easily.”
“No doubt due to the dark creatures you study all the time.”
Cara had to agree he was right. “My friends say I find conspiracies behind every corner, mysteries everywhere. Drives them crazy sometimes.”
“But it’s what you love.”
It was a strange thing to say, but again he was right.
He leaned forward, resting his elbow on the table, and continued. “Studying mythology and symbolism makes you seek out and notice the unexpected, and things that can’t be explained easily.”
“Like vampires.”
“Exactly.”
“But you don’t believe they exist.”
“God, no.” Her hunger evaporated. “I’m going to take this home and have it for dinner.” She got up and requested a take-home box. After the server left she transferred most of her salad to the cardboard carton. “I’m more thirsty than hungry right now for some reason.”
He nodded.
Cara drank some of her iced tea and crunched on the ice chips. Placing the box and her plate to the side, she leaned onto the table and asked him, “So, what did you think of the ball?”
“It was wonderful. The first one I’ve been to in many years. I’ve missed them. The costumes were…over the top.”
Cara laughed, thinking about some of the outfits. “I’d say you have a fondness for little green faeries.”
“I admit to it,” he said with his hand to his heart. He leaned toward her. “But my fondness for angels is unequaled.”
Cara could feel the blush coming on, and suspected the top of her chest was covered with blotchy red marks. The centers of his eyes took on an iridescent coppery glow, as if small bonfires resided there. He dropped his eyes to her heaving chest and she allowed herself to be admired. When their eyes connected again, something was understood between them.
What is this?
“I’d like to hear about your studies, Cara. May I call you Cara?”
“Please. Well, I became interested in the myth of the vampire because of the symbolism. They represent the ultimate alpha male figure. Strong. All-powerful. Dominant and controlling. Immortal. The ultimate bad boy you wouldn’t want to bring home to meet your mother.”
“Interesting. Go on.”
“Women read romance novels today because they are looking for the hero in their fantasy life they would never find in real life.”
“And you think that’s wrong?”
“Of course not. I read romance novels all the time, especially paranormal romance, with vampire heroes.”
“For pleasure?”
“Yes.”
“And so you began studying them?”
“Well, no. I am new to reading romance. Probably a good thing, too, or I would have never made it through college. Hard to tear me away from my favorites.”
“You like your alpha males.”
“Love them.”
“And do you have alpha males in your real life?”
It was a very personal question and it brought her up short. She grabbed for her iced tea, swallowed heavily and averted her eyes. With her forefinger, she traced the beads of vapor on the outside of her glass of tea. He was very still, awaiting an answer.
“I think the answer to that would be no,” she said to the top of her glass.
He squirmed in his chair, recrossing his long legs, tilting slightly back again. “Tell me more.”
“About my studies or about alpha males?”
“Whatever you want to tell me. Tell me something I wouldn’t think to ask you.”
Another strange question. His proximity made it so she couldn’t respond to the alarm bell sounding somewhere. It was like her body wanted to, but couldn’t for some reason.
“I’ve recently discovered some books by a 19th century Scottish theologian and scholar. He claims to have located the first written recordings of vampire myth. He found evidence of stories of raising the dead, giving life. Sort of like what we read about in novels about a turning.”
“Vampires turning humans. Into vampires.”
“Yes. Only this clergyman claims there was a group of people who worshiped and studied these myths shortly after the time of Christ. He wrote that there were people who practiced these black arts, but also practiced what he calls the Divine Coupling. Like there’s some blood mating ritual.”
The smile had erased from Paolo’s face. Cara knew she’d lost him again.
“I’m sorry. You asked me to tell you something I wouldn’t have normally, and I can see this was a mistake.”
He was watching her fingers move up and down her iced tea tumbler. “Couldn’t these texts be explained away as just a healthy curiosity in sex? It has been something men and women have worshiped and studied for centuries,” he finished.
“No. Well, maybe for others, but that’s not why I’m interested in it. If it’s true, he may have stumbled on the secret to immortality. I don’t think it was about the sex. It was about living forever, and dealing with living forever. What does one do when one lives forever?”
“He drinks port?”
She smiled, glad he wasn’t taking her seriously. It didn’t hurt her feelings in the slightest. “I keep wondering what sex would be like after having a thousand years of it. Maybe the temples were built, the religion of the divine coupling was created, to fill the needs of a bored society. Maybe some of them didn’t want to live forever, and that was a problem for them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I think they lost their immortality. On purpose. Chose to be mortal. That’s why they and most of the evidence of their civilization disappeared.”
Chapter 13
Paolo had never been curious about the origins of his species, which was odd, since he loved mysteries. Perhaps he was unsure what he’d find if he dug too deeply. He assumed vampires, both dark and golden, had always co-existed with the human population. But many of his kin had lived centuries, longer than his three hundred years, and could see changes occurring in their vampiric DNA. New children were born with special powers. Certainly there were breeding oddities forming when a dark and a golden vampire mated. Exceptions were occurring at an alarming rate.
He searched what he had been taught. He’d been a gentleman scholar, in the classical sense, almost three hundred years ago, growing up in Tuscany. But what fascinated him for most of his life was human nature. Paolo knew he wanted to be mortal—be and live life as a human—even with its brevity. It was these mortals he befriended, drawn like a moth to the flame. Once he had accepted the turning, he never could really be human again, even though he walked amongst them as much as was possible.
To idle the time away, he focused on amassing wealth, something he did very successfully, and tried to live as “normal” a life as possible. He guarded the secret of his vampire genes, and was a dedicated husband to his mortal wives. In the end, though he tried very hard, he failed miserably.
Could someone have discovered the apex? When their immortality began? He also wondered if these early vampires were dark or golden.
Or was there a difference at the beginning?
He was fascinated.
“Where have you gone?” she asked him, and he realized he’d been daydreaming.
“I’m enchanted with your story, Cara. I’ve never heard it before.” It was the truth.
“Well, at this point that is all it is, a good story. But I just feel like there’s something to it. My classes are the way I pay my bills. But what I’d rather do is research full time. I haunt libraries like some haunt bars.”
They both laughed. It
felt good to see her smile. It seemed to bring out the sun in the room.
“So this is what you do with your free time?” he asked.
“Pretty much. I have to force myself to get out and do something decadent, like going to that costume ball.”
“Where you meet a mysterious gentlemen dressed as the creature you study.”
“Exactly. Like it was fated.”
She was smiling, shaking her head from side to side and looking down at the table. Paolo wanted to take her in his arms and cover her body with kisses. He consciously toned down the glamour, releasing her reluctantly. But then he couldn’t help it. His soul needed warming.
Come to me, Carabella. Show me you have interest and I will fulfill your wildest fantasies.
She was making figure eights with her forefinger in the water spot from her iced tea. The design was flowing, sensual. Curved, and that point she seemed to linger on where the two rings touched and crossed over one another. Unexpectedly, she looked up into his face and he felt her need. It wasn’t a glamoured attraction. It was coming purely from her.
“Tell me about yourself, Paolo.”
He sat up straight and laid his forearms on the wooden table, sliding them over so that his palms rested on her fingers. “Gladly,” he said as he gently squeezed her hands. He waited to feel any hesitation on her part. There was none.
“I’m from an old family in Tuscany. Generations of Monteleones have lived all over the Mediterranean, but mostly in Italy.” He searched the warmth of her cheeks, down her neck, examining the length of it, and the curve as it connected to her shoulders.
“And?” she asked.
“You must forgive me, but I find you so beautiful, it is distracting.”
That brought a flush of blood to her face. She jerked her fingers slightly, but did not remove them from under his large hands. He rubbed the side of her palm with his thumb. Slowly, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the delicate flesh of the backs of her fingers, which smelled of jasmine and lavender. He felt her pulse quicken.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“For what?” She smiled through a sudden realization that she’d been blushing, embarrassed.
“For not running away.”
She slipped her hands free and dropped them in her lap. He resisted the temptation to glam her as she straightened her spine and averted her eyes. But then she came back to him, her lips slightly open, moist. And she looked at his mouth.
You come to me of your own free will, Carabella. I will not hurt you.
“I, too, am a bit of a loner,” he began. “I like dark corners in large rooms, stay to the outside. Don’t like to attract attention. I don’t have any alpha females in my life, either.”
Her face lit up at that.
“You certainly looked like you enjoyed being the center of attention at the ball,” she said.
“Faeries. Faeries are always beta. Angels are alpha.” He tilted his head to see how these words affected her. She leaned in, putting her chin in her palm, not seeming to notice that she’d planted her elbow in the small puddle of condensation on the table. She finally shrugged, as if unable to give him a comment, her eyes wandering all over his face, down the front of his chest.
“Sometimes I get carried away.” He said as he looked directly at her and was rewarded when he saw the blue vein at her neck pop up, as if greeting his hungry fangs. He was filled with desire to taste her, and to mate with this charming mortal woman.
“So tell me something about you I wouldn’t ask,” she whispered.
“I am staying with my brother and his wife in Healdsburg. They have a small winery there. But I have a home in Tuscany.”
“That wasn’t a very daring reveal. Surely you can do better than that.” Her eyes sparkled with the taunt.
He hesitated, and then answered, “I have never found the love of my life. I am the only one of my brothers who has not found that special someone.”
She raised her eyebrows, and waited for more.
“I have tasted wines from all over the world. You might call me a professional taster, but I have no degrees.”
“A professional taster of women, too, it seems. Never been close to taking the plunge?”
“Close, yes. Several times. I do enjoy mortal women.” His slip-up earned him a frown from across the table. He quickly recovered with a smile, indicating it was a joke, “I identify playing the part of your vampires. The dark loner, brooding type, occasionally bored with my life. I don’t attract women who last very long.”
It was the truth, and seemed to satisfy her.
“What do you do to them to send them away?”
That was a good question. “Every good fantasy has an untimely death, right? You believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy…”
“You really believe a fantasy love can’t last forever?” she asked, dismissing the childhood references.
“As in immortal?” he asked. He was coming closer to the dangerous edge of a reveal, and he knew she’d rein herself in very soon.
“I mean a love that can last a lifetime,” she spoke the innocent words which captured him. He could see this was important to her.
“With all my heart. Yes.” He placed one palm on his chest as his other hand wanted to hold hers. But Cara was primly sitting, hiding her hands under the table. He could feel her resolve, a combination of control and desire.
Let me unleash your inner fantasies, Carabella. Let me teach you the pleasures of…
Cara’s cell phone blurted out the sound of a car horn. She fished for it from her computer case and answered, “Hello Johnny. What’s up?”
Paolo listened to the squawking on the other end of the line. He looked out the window as he heard her assistant’s tinny words. “You wanted me to go down to Berkeley to speak to that researcher. Can I bail on the office time if I promise to do it for you this afternoon?”
“Anyone signed up?” Cara asked.
“Well, I’d blocked out the afternoon for our discussion time, so I don’t think anyone will be here. I can’t go to Berkeley tomorrow, so thought I’d take advantage of the time today. You okay with that?”
Cara looked at Paolo, who was pretending he had no idea the lovely woman in front of him was now free for the entire afternoon.
“I’m fine with that. Leave it marked off. I’ll see you Wednesday. Thanks for calling.” She ended the call and placed her phone on the table.
Cara’s screen saver was a picture of Frank Langella dressed as Dracula.
“Good news?” he asked. He tried not to stare at the actor’s picture.
“It seems my office hours have been cancelled.”
Paolo took her hands in his. “I’ve got some excellent thoughts on how we might spend the afternoon. If you’re willing.”
She stared at their entwined fingers as she allowed her forefinger to rub along his flesh. Her touch sent him into a trance of desire.
“I think I might like that.”
And that was all she had to say.
Chapter 14
The driver took them the back way, up through vineyards in Alexander Valley. Paolo leaned back into the leather seat so he could get a side view of Bella, who was fascinated with the dark limo’s interior and sparkling lights. She looked like she was on her first chauffeur-driven ride for her high school prom. She turned and caught him staring at her, but he didn’t care. If it concerned her, she didn’t show it.
“I like all the colors this time of year,” she said, looking out the window at the richness of vineyards bursting with gold and burgundy.
It was true, but the color he liked best was the red of her lips, and her flushed cheeks, and her light pink fingernail polish. He wanted to feel those pink fingers on his flesh, feel the sharpness of her nails digging into his back as he plundered her deeply, claimed her for his own over and over again.
Even though he didn’t use glamour, she leaned into him, as he pulled an arm around her shoulder. She sighed and seem
ed to melt into his frame. Her hot flesh sent warmth to every cell of his body. “I feel absolutely decadent,” she whispered. “Have never done this in the middle of a school day.”
“Ah. And here I thought it was perhaps the company you’re keeping.”
She grinned. “That, too.”
“Come. We shall celebrate.” He leaned forward and opened a glass of port, pouring one for each of them.
“You come prepared.”
“Always.” He did not tell her he traveled with a case at all times.
“So you had a feeling this would happen?”
“Eventually, yes.” It was difficult not to give her the gloating grin he knew would turn her off.
“Eventually? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Like you, I’m a fairly good judge of people.”
“People, or women?”
“Women too.” Like I can tell what you are feeling. He didn’t think he would have the gift of mindspeech with Cara, but perhaps could develop it in time. If he was given the time, that is. Paolo could sense her emotions.
He felt her pulse quicken slightly. Her eyes widened and he could hear the little breath she sucked in and tried to hide.
“Bella—may I call you Bella?”
“Yes.”
“Bella, you are safe with me. And,” he pointed to the chauffer, “we have a witness.”
“Behind glass,” she said.
“Absolutely, so even your words are safe with me.” She was lovely the way her eyes danced in the afternoon sunlight. For my eyes only. Words for my ears only.
“This rather reminds me of one of those novels I read. The vampire seducing a mortal woman.”
“Hmmm…I thought I was being subtle,” he whispered to the top of her head. He was going to say more, but the giggle she gave him as she squeezed herself against his chest sent a spark traveling straight down to his groin.
Was it always going to be like this around her? Her lightness of spirit thrilled him. His fondness for mortal women was driving his delight higher than it ever had been before. So uncomplicated, simple, and with a lack of the darkness he found in vamp women, who liked to dominate and push their power. Sex with them was a tug of war and a near fight to the death. When he was younger, he used to love it. But especially since Maya, he’d lost all desire to bed women with fangs. In between his wives, he’d usually sought the arms of mortal women.
Mortal Bite (Golden Vampires of Tuscany) Page 7