The Bite Before Christmas

by Jeaniene Frost

  Katricia bit her lip and glanced away, then sighed and shook her head and peered back at him. “I think so, yes.”

  The words took his breath away and Teddy simply gaped at her for a minute, but then asked slowly, “You think so? Or you know so?”

  Katricia eyed Teddy for a moment. Marguerite’s warning to go slowly was ringing in her head, but she just couldn’t. She didn’t even want to, and while she’d managed to behave all day, now that he was lying on top of her, his body feeling warm and solid despite it being a dream, and his erection nestled against her groin . . . Well, she just couldn’t behave anymore. Spreading her legs so that he sank between them, his erection pressing more firmly where she wanted, Katricia let her hands slide over his back and down to his behind again to urge him more fully against her, and said, “I can’t read you, haven’t been interested in food for centuries before today, or sex for that matter. But I am now . . . and we’re having a shared dream. Yes, you’re my life mate.”

  Teddy stared at her for a moment, desire battling with a frown on his face, and then he asked, “This is a dream?”

  That question really wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. She hadn’t really been sure what to expect, protestations maybe, the cut-and-run scenario Marguerite had got her worrying about. But this question left her unsure how he was reacting to the news. Biting her lip, Katricia nodded, and then gasped when he suddenly flung aside the top of the unzipped sleeping bag. Katricia’s arms instinctively tightened around him to keep him from leaping up or rolling off of her.

  But he didn’t do either. Instead, Teddy bent his head and rubbed her nose with his, murmuring, “If it’s a dream we don’t have to worry about getting cold.”

  “No,” she agreed in a whisper, her hold on him easing as he brushed his lips over hers. Katricia was almost sorry she’d loosened her hold when he suddenly shifted off of her, but he was only moving to lie next to her on the sleeping bag, and he continued to kiss her, just toying with her lips, brushing and then nipping at them. Teasing her, she decided and was about to open her mouth and deepen the kiss herself when he suddenly raised his head to peer down her body.

  Teddy’s eyes widened as he took in the over-large T-shirt that was her only covering, and he plucked at it lightly, one eyebrow rising. “Where did your clothes go?”

  “This is what I normally sleep in,” she whispered as his hand slid down her side to the outside of her upper thigh where the T-shirt ended.

  “I like it,” he announced. “Simple and sexy.”

  Her eyes widened and she bit her lip as his hand slid under the hem to ride up her outer leg to her hip. He watched his hand and wrist disappear under the cloth, and then shifted his gaze to her face and asked, “If this is a dream, why aren’t I young and handsome for you?”

  “You are young and handsome to me,” she said huskily, and reached up to slip one hand around his neck. “I like you just the way you are. I find you sexy just as you are. I want you just as you are.”

  Teddy’s eyes narrowed on hers, searching for the truth in her words and Katricia stared back. He was her life mate, the most beautiful man in the world to her. She didn’t have to lie about that and met his gaze, unflinching, until his head lowered and his mouth covered hers. His hand continued upward then, skimming along the side of her waist and then gliding smoothly up to cover one breast under her T-shirt as his tongue thrust into her opening mouth.

  Katricia moaned, her body arching as the double assault stirred hot desire to life in her. It raced through her like a forest fire, stronger than anything she’d ever experienced before, and she kissed him back with the desperation suddenly claiming her, her arms slipping around his shoulders and pulling him to half-cover her. She ran her hands over the flannel covering his back, wishing it wasn’t there, and suddenly it wasn’t, and she was caressing his warm skin, her fingers gliding over shifting muscle.

  When Teddy suddenly broke their kiss and removed his hand to pull away, Katricia’s heart actually stopped beating briefly and she blurted, “Please don’t run.”

  Teddy had been ducking his head, but paused and raised it to peer at her with surprise. “Run?”

  Katricia nodded. “Marguerite warned me that I should let you get to know me better before I told you we were life mates. She said you might be overwhelmed if you knew too soon and might run. I—” She paused when he suddenly pressed a finger to her mouth to silence her.

  “Tricia,” he said solemnly. “I’m not running. I’ve seen what life mates can have. I’ve seen how good it can be between them, and never dreamed I’d be lucky enough to enjoy that. I have no intention of running.”

  “Oh.” She peered at him uncertainly. “When you stopped kissing me, I thought . . .”

  “You thought wrong,” Teddy assured her firmly and then smiled and said, “I stopped kissing you to do this.” He then ducked his head again, but this time managed to finish what he’d apparently intended when he’d broken their kiss. His clothes weren’t the only thing now gone, her T-shirt was, too, leaving nothing to prevent his mouth closing over the nipple of the breast he’d been fondling.

  “Oh,” Katricia breathed as he sucked the nipple between his lips. She slid her fingers into his hair and arched into the caress.

  He wasn’t running. They would be life mates, she thought dazedly, legs shifting restlessly as he drew on her nipple. Christ, she didn’t remember anything feeling this good when she’d still enjoyed sex. But then if it had, she probably wouldn’t have tired of it, Katricia acknowledged, curling her fingers in his hair as he suckled her. When he let her nipple slip from his mouth and blew on the now-damp bud, she moaned and shifted beneath him, her back arching to invite him back. But instead of reclaiming it with his mouth, he covered it with his hand and kneaded gently as he raised his mouth to claim her lips instead.

  Katricia opened to him at once, welcoming his tongue when it slid inside. Her hands then began moving over him, traveling his chest and exploring the wide, hard width. He might be older, but Teddy kept himself in good shape, and she squeezed the muscles of his chest, and then pinched at his nipples even as he pinched and tweaked hers. They both groaned in response and then Teddy released her breast and moved his hand to her hip to urge her on her side to face him fully before his fingers slid around to find and squeeze one butt cheek. Kneading and massaging the firm flesh, he urged her tighter against him and she felt his hardness against her thigh and then he suddenly released her behind and slipped his hand around between their bodies.

  Katricia gave up on his chest and clutched at his shoulders with a gasp as his hand dipped between her legs. Just his one kiss and his brief caress had her so damp his fingers slid silkily against her hot, wet flesh. Katricia sucked on the tongue thrusting into her mouth and raised her leg to wrap it around his hip as she ground herself into his touch. Teddy took advantage of the room she gave him to maneuver and slid a finger inside her even as he continued to caress her with his thumb and Katricia broke their kiss on a cry, her body arching and straining upward. The action even shifted her several inches upward on the sleeping bag, but Teddy’s hand simply followed and he lowered his mouth to her breast, laving the small globe, before sucking almost all of it into his mouth.

  “Teddy,” Katricia moaned. Need was a living thing inside her as she rode his hand, but she wanted his mouth on hers and him inside her, and . . . She wanted everything with a need that was almost frightening, and her voice was almost a growl as she pleaded, “Teddy, please. I need you inside me.”

  He immediately let her breast slip from his lips and shifted up to claim her mouth again, silencing her, but merely continuing to caress her. Moaning, Katricia immediately slid her hand down between them to find the hardness growing between them. But the moment she clasped him in hand, Teddy broke their kiss and stopped caressing her to catch her hand.

  “Tricia, you really don’t want to do that,” he muttere
d, trying to force her hand away.

  “Yes, I do,” she assured him, tightening her hold and watching with fascination as his expression tightened along with it.

  Groaning, Teddy shook his head and leaned his forehead on hers, muttering, “Sweetheart, I’ve been half-erect all damned day watching you run around in those damned tights of yours. It wouldn’t take much to bring this to a premature end.”

  “Yoga pants,” Katricia murmured, easing her grip a little.

  “Huh?” He raised his head to stare at her blankly.

  “They’re yoga pants, not tights,” she explained, nipping at his chin.

  “Yoga?” Teddy echoed.

  “Hmm.” Katricia grinned at his expression and then whispered, “I’m very flexible.”

  “Damn,” Teddy breathed, staring into her face. “This is going to be the poorest showing I’ve given since I was an eager teenager.”

  Katricia chuckled at his dismay and released his erection to slide her arms around his chest. “Then we’ll just have to do it again and again. We have all night.”

  She saw his eyes widen, and then took him by surprise and turned him suddenly onto his back so that she could rise up to straddle him, but he was suddenly gone.

  Five

  Teddy grunted in pain and blinked his eyes open. He was still in his zipped-up sleeping bag, or mostly, his arm had escaped and he’d turned in his sleep and thumped it against the stone lip of the fireplace. It was the source of the pain radiating up his arm and what had woken him. Grimacing, he pulled the arm back into the sleeping bag and rubbed his wrist with his good hand, his eyes shooting to Katricia. She was still asleep on the couch, but her sleeping bag was undone and half off her.

  He wondered briefly what was happening in the dream or if it had stopped with his waking, then tried to settle down to sleep again, eager to get back to it, but now that he was awake he was aware that the room was much colder than it had been when he’d fallen asleep. Frowning, Teddy glanced to the fire to see that it had burned down to embers while they slept. He almost ignored it and went back to sleep anyway, but recalling that Katricia was farther away from the fire and half-uncovered, he reluctantly sat up and then slid from the sleeping bag to feed more logs to the fire. There were only two logs left, he saw with a frown. He hadn’t noticed earlier they were running low or he would have fetched in more wood before retiring.

  Teddy placed both logs in the fire and poked at them a bit, then straightened and quickly pulled on his jeans and sweater over his flannels. He then started to head over and get his coat, but paused beside the couch long enough to cover up Katricia. Immortals weren’t affected by cold like mortals, but they were still affected. The nanos would be using up blood at an accelerated rate to fight the cold and Katricia couldn’t afford that. As confident as she’d been that, snow or no snow, her blood delivery would come, it hadn’t shown yet.

  Katricia stirred sleepily as he tugged the sleeping bag back into place over her, and Teddy paused to peer at her for a moment. The dream was still fresh and clear in his mind, but it suddenly occurred to him to wonder if that wasn’t all it had been. Maybe he just wanted to believe they were life mates and it had really just been all his own dream and not a shared one.

  The thought was alarming. When she’d said it was a shared dream and they were life mates, he’d been happy to believe it. In fact, he’d eagerly embraced the news, knowing it meant having what both Mabel and Elvi had found: a relationship of earthshaking passion, complete trust, and deep binding friendship and love.

  Teddy was too pragmatic to believe he loved Katricia already. It had only been a day, but he was pretty sure he was firmly headed that way. The woman was just . . . Well, she was sassy as hell, smart as a whip, and had a killer sense of humor. He’d laughed more today during their snowball fight, card games, and talks than he’d laughed with any woman ever.

  She was also sexy as sin. He hadn’t been kidding in the dream when he’d said he’d been half-erect all day. Every time he’d looked at her, little Teddy had perked up like a happy dog’s ears. And he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear his tongue had been hanging out half the day like that same happy dog’s tongue. He’d never encountered a female who affected him like she did. Even Elvi.

  The admission was a big one for Teddy. He’d been half in love with Ellen “Elvi” Black since he was a boy. No other woman had been able to compare, in his mind. Until now . . . and that was why he’d brought such an abrupt end to their conversation when Katricia had asked if he meant he’d never found anyone he loved, or anyone he’d loved as much as Elvi. Because he’d almost admitted, “Until now.”

  That thought in his head had startled the hell out of Teddy in that moment. But he now realized that, as much as he’d loved Elvi, it seemed to him it had been a young boy’s love, a sort of adoration, but without the gritty lust he felt for Katricia. If he’d felt half as hot for Elvi as he did for Katricia, he wouldn’t have simply stood by and watched her marry her mortal husband, and then he wouldn’t have set out to find her a vampire mate. He’d have been desperate to claim her for his own. Teddy had always thought he’d stood aside for Elvi’s sake, that he’d not wanted to stand in the way of her happiness. But the fact of the matter was, he suspected she’d just been an ideal to him. The perfect, untouchable female. He didn’t even think he’d wanted her for real. Not like he wanted Katricia, because while he’d stood aside for Elvi, he already knew he couldn’t do that with Katricia. He couldn’t and wouldn’t stand aside for her to find happiness with someone else . . . which would be a problem if they weren’t really life mates and it had really all just been wishful dreaming on his part.

  Sighing, Teddy ran one hand wearily through his hair, then turned and moved into the kitchen to grab his coat and boots. Rather than risk waking Katricia, he took them with him and slid out into the icy vestibule. He pulled the door silently closed before quickly donning them, and then grabbed one of the flashlights and slipped outside.

  It had been cold that day, but it was even worse in the dead of night. The snow crunched under foot, the wind hit his face like icy sandpaper, and the moisture in his nose froze before he’d taken half a dozen steps. They definitely needed the wood, he thought grimly, and once he got back inside, he should probably set his watch alarm to go off every couple of hours so he could feed the fire again. In this kind of weather, they could freeze to death if the fire went out. Chances were the cold would wake him, but if it didn’t . . . well, he didn’t even want to think about that.

  The tarp crinkled stiffly when he pulled it back to get to the wood it protected. Teddy quickly scooped up as many logs as he could carry and started back toward the cottage. He was nearly to the deck when he spotted light through the leafless trees between the cottage and the lakeshore in front of it. Pausing, he eyed it for a minute, then changed direction and walked around in front of the deck, traveling several feet down the gentle incline to get a better look without the trees in the way.

  A slow smile curved Teddy’s lips when he was able to see it clearly. A cottage across the lake was lit up like a Christmas tree, light shining from every window. It wasn’t the fact that they had power that made him smile, but that there was someone else on the lake. Tomorrow morning he could walk across the frozen lake and ask to use the phone to take care of the power problem if it wasn’t already taken care of by then. He might even be able to beg a ride into town for better provisions to get them by until the road was clear and they could drive out.

  A loud rustling in the trees behind and to the side of him caught his ear. Teddy stiffened, and then slowly turned his head to peer over his shoulder. He spotted the large, lumbering shape by the shed and recognized it at once as a bear. There were few animals in the woods that size but bears. Seeing one of them at this time of year, though, was a rarity indeed. Bears didn’t hibernate, as most people thought, at least not a true hibernation with the metabolic
depression and lower body temperature. They actually slept and could be roused. Last night’s storm had probably wakened the creature. A tree falling nearby its den or . . . Well, it could be anything, but whatever the case, the beast was up and probably hungry.

  Teddy didn’t panic right away. He was downwind and in the shadow of the trees. The bear wasn’t likely to see or smell him and would, no doubt, lumber on his way after a moment or two. He just had to wait out the beast . . . and maybe pray the animal didn’t lumber in his direction, he thought grimly, and then glanced sharply to the cottage when the door suddenly opened.

  “Teddy?” Katricia called, stepping out onto the deck in her coat and boots and peering toward the shed. “Do you need help?”

  Panic seized Teddy then. He didn’t even think; seeing the bear pause and turn slowly in Katricia’s direction, he let all but one of the logs he carried drop and started forward, roaring, “Get back inside!”

  Katricia turned his way with surprise, but Teddy’s attention was on the bear, who had turned and was now facing them both. The beast hesitated, and for one moment, Teddy had hope that the bear would be scared off by the sudden activity and noise. But it was mid-winter and the animal was hungry enough that noise and motion wouldn’t put him off when there was a meal to be had. The bear charged.

  “Get inside!” Teddy repeated, raising his log as he ran. He continued to shout as he raced forward, log upraised, making as much noise and trying to make himself as big and threatening as he could. The bear didn’t even slow. It was like a game of chicken, but at the last moment, Teddy stepped to the right toward the cottage and swung for the side of the bear’s head with all his might. He connected, the impact vibrating up his arms, but he hadn’t stepped far enough or fast enough and felt the claws of one paw tear into his chest and stomach. Gasping in pain, he swung again even as he stumbled back against the cottage wall, managing to whack the beast in the snout as the bear turned toward him. The bear roared in pain and fury and rose up on his hind legs. Teddy was pretty sure he was done for when the sudden blast of a gun exploded to his side.