She couldn’t think about that. Christian’s mouth was sensational, educational, hypnotic. He did things with his mouth that she’d never known could be done. He must have taken a handful of her black silk dress, because all of a sudden there was a draft below her waist, and the feel of warm fingers near the top of her stockings.
Christian gave the elastic lace a snap. The movement, and even the sound, was so subtle, so seductive, Veronica thought maybe she had experienced intercourse without knowing how he had managed to get in.
More mouth. More lips. More strokes with his hands. Who needed chocolate, whipped cream, or gem-laden tiaras when you had a man like Christian up tight against you? Heck, he could be queen, if he would just move those hands sideways.
Could she survive it, though, if he did what she was thinking?
Her body was directing the internal hum toward a crescendo. Her legs were trembling, and starting to open all on their own. She had practiced sexual willpower for years, and now it was beginning to feel as if she were about to be set free.
Gazing up at Christian’s face, she allowed him to see this decision.
He nodded, smiled, and obliged.
Chapter eleven
The first rest stop on Christian’s road trip was the crease of Veronica’s left thigh, where her flesh separated her leg from more important places. He didn’t loiter there, running his hand across her overheated skin, journeying across the fraying edge of her self control.
As quickly as that, they had made it to underwear.
Veronica groaned.
His fingers burned their way over her lace, feathering over it and the fine hair that no one could explain how or why grew down there.
Veronica held her breath.
He explored her lightly, pressing into the little scrap of material covering folds of her nether flower, that magical site leading to the very core of Veronica Davis. She muttered a very small protest; more like a whimper, and Christian eyed her with a tender, mesmerizing glance.
“Minus one minute and counting,” he whispered. “There’s still time to go back, inside.”
“More,” Veronica said in the tone of a kid in the midst of a sugar fog, demanding another piece of candy.
“They’ll be coming soon,” he warned.
“Let them!”
He smiled. “You like this, my angel?”
“Can’t you tell by my teeth?”
He moved his hand. She swayed with delight.
“We have all the time in the world,” he told her. “Not just tonight, but forever. You and me.”
Gad. It was a new F word. Veronica almost lost sight of the goal, which was immediate sexual gratification. That particular F word was one every woman wanted to hear. But . . .
“Can we start with tonight?” she asked.
After some consideration on his part, Christian withdrew his exploration altogether, put his hands on her waist, and lifted her up to the top of the marble slab, which was an instantaneous bit of coolness against the flames igniting her backside.
On the front side, Christian’s bulge of promise, inside of those slick slacks, was now tight up against her twenty-dollar scrap of lace that sufficed as underwear these days.
Unleash that thing! Veronica wanted to shout. Show me your stuff, vamp! But she wasn’t quite so free yet. Not vocally, anyway. She wasn’t used to being queen. She wasn’t used to sex.
“Why the rush?” Christian asked, pressing even closer.
“Rush? Are you kidding? It’s been four minutes! And isn’t it my job to protest about the rush, if there were to be a question about one?”
“I want more of you than sex. I’m willing to wait.”
“Maybe I should have hired a werewolf,” Veronica said. “They probably have sex all the time without over-thinking things.”
“You have sex under a full moon with a werewolf, and you become a werewolf.”
“What if I have sex with a vampire beneath a full moon?”
"It will spoil you for anyone else."
Veronica grinned, but couldn’t sustain it. Christian’s eyes told her he was bluffing about wanting to call this off, and that he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.
“Are you bragging about your special abilities?” she asked.
“You’ll have to find out.”
“I’m trying to find out.”
He looked carefully at her face, but he also returned his hand to the scrap of lace. Now they were getting somewhere!
“Will you bite me?” Veronica asked, thighs and everything between them pulsing with anticipation.
“I never bite on the first date.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Maybe later,” he promised.
“I’ve read somewhere that we’re supposed to live in the moment.”
Christian’s smile was knowing. “You are persistent.”
Veronica’s teeth clamped shut. Her insides, on the other hand were throbbing, even as her molars grated.
“I suppose you do this all the time,” she managed to say, waiting to experience what he had to offer. Waiting for something. Unwilling to believe he wanted more, wanted her, and yet would wait out more time for actual physical consummation.
“You might be surprised about that, I think,” Christian said.
“Really? How long has it been since you’ve . . . ?”
“Two hundred years.”
“It’s felt like that for me, too.”
“No. I mean it has been two hundred years.”
“Sure,” Veronica whispered throatily.
“I only have sex with the women I’m bound to,” Christian explained.
“Bound equates with sex?”
“Sex means sex. Bound means binding. Binding means a merging of souls, along with a mingling of blood. More of a spiritual merge than a simple marriage ceremony, ending in a relationship that lasts through eternity.”
Veronica didn’t know why this wacky explanation produced in her such a powerful reaction. The phrase “lasts through eternity” brought her to a peak, no extra touching involved. Up, up, she spiraled, unconsciously wrapping her legs around his hips, with her heart in her throat.
After a brief smile, Christian untangled her legs from around him. One second, she was looking into his eyes, and the next, he had sank downward, between her thighs.
Veronica knew what this position might mean, and therefore what he just might do to her, but had no firsthand knowledge of it. She hadn’t wanted to try out this sort of ultimate intimacy with anyone temporary. All her senses switched to red alert. She quivered, shook. Her bosom actually heaved. She knew that if any part of Christian touched her there, she’d lose consciousness. Finis!
She listened for the sound of the small triangle of lace tearing with her hands and teeth clenched, hoping she wouldn’t pommel Christian with her fists, either because he did or didn’t do what she was expecting. Praying she would hear that sound, praying she wouldn’t.
Instead, she heard a growl of surprise from the periphery.
The strange guttural sound split the night. Not lace tearing. Something else.
Someone else.
Christian turned his head. Veronica turned hers. They both saw the ghost at exact the same time. She screamed. Christian he got to his feet.
But it wasn’t a ghost, of course. Though the shrouded white thing floating toward them was as creepy as any supernatural creature might have been, just what and who it was became crystal clear less than a minute later.
Christian pressed her knees together with a casual gesture, and tugged down her skirt. Then he said, facing the white apparition, “Hello Charlene.”
Chapter twelve
A long hissing noise erupted from the approaching apparition. And damn if it wasn’t Charlene.
Veronica’s sister still had a tight hold on her bouquet. The fact that she hadn’t yet tossed the flowers meant she had left the church undetected. Very likely, she had raised one finger and raced for the l
ittle girls’ room. No one in the wedding party would have figured anything suspicious about that, because the ceremony itself must have ended.
Charlene’s veil had been thrown back, revealing her face, as seen by the light of the moon. Veronica felt a rush of relief. Veil back meant the vows had indeed been completed. Charlene was a married woman. No excuses now for a roving eye. Ross was attached to her by an unbreakable invisible thread.
Yet, though pale by nature and current fad, Charlene’s face had a crimson flush. Her cheeks were filled with air, much like a Puffer Fish. Her dark eyes were carnivorous. As she pointed her bouquet at her little sister, not in offering, but with a threatening gesture, moonlight caught the jewels in her tiara.
“Congratulations,” Veronica said, without putting much effort in the salutation, since her heartbeat was thundering in her ears.
“Yes. Congratulations,” Christian seconded.
“You!” Charlene shrieked, continuing to point the bouquet, unable to project the word with the force she had intended. “What are you doing here?”
“I . . .” Veronica couldn’t go on. Did Charlene mean to ask what she was doing here at the church, or here in the graveyard, with her panties down?
Christian, showing no signs of being nonplused, distressed, or embarrassed, picked up her slack. “We’re engaging in a bit of sexual foreplay,” he told the angry apparition.
Feeling the color drain from her face, Veronica only then noticed that Charlene wasn’t pointing the bouquet at her, after all. Charlene was pointing and glaring at Christian.
“Why are you here, Christian?” Charlene demanded.
And then it hit Veronica, square in the face. Charlene knew her date’s name, when no introductions had been made.
“I believe I just answered that question,” Christian said to Charlene.
Charlene looked to Veronica now. Shrugging, but slightly confused, Veronica concurred. “Yep. That’s what we were doing. Foreplay.”
True, Charlene had caught them in a very compromising situation. But had Charlene glided all the way out there just to put them on the spot? Not because they had ditched observing the “I do’s” but because this handsome man was with the bride’s little sister? Because the most incredible, handsome man here wasn’t paying homage to the older Davis?
This ruffled Veronica’s feathers for so many reasons, chief of which was the fact that Charlene had her man already. Butting into affairs that didn’t have anything to do with her, was unacceptable behavior on a new bride’s part.
“Why are you with her?” Charlene demanded of Christian. “How did you find her?”
Veronica’s ruffling suddenly ceased. Charlene’s questions struck an odd chord. With a tilt of her head, Veronica said to Christian, “So, how does she know your name?”
“His name?” Charlene spat. “His name?”
“Your sister has been to the agency,” Christian said.
Okay . . . and . . . What?
The graveyard began to revolve. Tombstones, grave markers, and distant mausoleums all twirled around, bigger than the dots in the church and ten times as imposing. Veronica clung hard to the slippery surface beneath her, no matter what it was.
Christian came to her aid, braced her with his shoulder.
“The agency?” Veronica croaked.
“Of course, you twit,” Charlene snapped. “I took my mate search seriously.”
“You escorted her?” Veronica said to Christian.
“No. She wasn’t for me. She went for Brad,” Christian replied.
“Brad? In coffin number two?”
“The same.”
The merest hint of a smile played on his talented mouth, which slowed Veronica’s spinning somewhat. She flashed back to Brad’s bio — the beach boy in coffin two. Age, thirty. Fair haired, with beautiful blue eyes.
“What did Ross have to say about Brad?” she asked Charlene, because it seemed that Christian’s courage was contagious.
“It’s none of your damn business,” Charlene raged.
“You’re right,” Christian agreed. “It is none of our business, of course. And you chose Ross, and have just married him. Ross, who no doubt awaits you in the church, along with a couple hundred guests.”
“Guests who might be interested to know my sister is acting like a slut out here with you,” Charlene shouted.
“Ah, but I don’t see how it is any of their concern,” Christian argued. “Neither would you want to slander a family member, I think, on such an important occasion. We do, however, apologize if this has upset you.”
Veronica nodded her agreement, but sincerely hoped that God hadn’t come traipsing out here with Charlene, fresh from overseeing the vows. She was hazy on whether foreplay in a graveyard was actually a sin.
“You’re just like the rest of them,” Charlene shrieked, aiming verbally at Christian. “Condescending bastards, all of you.” And to Veronica, she added, “You do know what they are? You know they’re vampires?”
“Bloodsuckers,” Veronica said. “Walking dead.”
“Well, aren’t you in for a big surprise.” Charlene’s voice lowered an octave as she smugly said to Christian, “My sister thinks it’s a joke.”
“She hasn’t accepted it yet,” Christian corrected.
“And you think she would be out here with you if she did?”
“I hope so.”
Veronica cut in there. “Don’t talk like I’m not present. And what happened to Brad?”
“Yes,” Christian said. “What about Brad?”
Veronica looked at her companion intently. “You said you wait, and that you don’t date. Isn’t it the same for Brad?”
“It’s the same for all of us,” he replied.
“All of you wait for a potential person to bind with?”
“Bind?” Charlene interrupted. “You ignorant idiot. Do you know what that means?”
Christian addressed Charlene. “Do you?”
“Oh yes, I know. And I live to tell about it.”
“That’s curious.” Christian’s voice dropped to pure gravel status. “Since I believe you had a contract with Brad, and that you and he had made it to second base before you hit the road.”
“Second base?” Veronica repeated.
Christian nodded. “Nearly third base, but no home run.”
Christian’s grin had taken on an edge. It seemed to Veronica that he liked helping her stand up to her family, and wasn’t in the least intimidated by Evil Incarnate. Christian Dale, bless his heart, was acting as her champion, just as she had hoped. If she lived through this encounter, she would promote him to king.
“Brad?” The severity of Charlene’s voice sent some of Veronica’s newly found courage scurrying. “Brad was going to bite me. You are foolish, little sister, for being out here with a vampire.”
Downgraded from ”slut” to “foolish,” and feeling slightly encouraged by this, if still shaky, Veronica turned to Christian. “You’re planning to bite me?”
“I did say something about later, didn’t I?”
“Are you crazy?” Charlene yelled. “He bites you and you are a vampire.”
Veronica looked for an explanation in Christian’s big brown eyes.
“A certain kind of bite can help to make a vampire. No full moon is necessary, unless a vampire wants to see who is it he’s about to enlist,” he said.
“He’s joking about this!” Charlene hissed. “Biting is what binding is!”
Veronica looked to Christian. He nodded.
“One bite?” Veronica asked.
“No. You would have to then bite me back.”
“That’s when the blood mingles. That’s what you were talking about?”
“It is.”
“Sounds disgusting,” Veronica said.
“It’s actually quite beautiful,” he corrected.
“It’s creepy!” Charlene ranted. “Obscene! Gory! If you consider this, I’ll tell Mother!”
Muttering her ow
n blasphemies beneath her breath, then grinning, Veronica said, “I think Mom could use a little biting, herself. On the backside, preferably.”
“We could introduce her to Gavin,” Christian suggested, wrapping his arms snugly around her, holding her close.
“Gavin?”
“Coffin number eight.”
“How old is he?”
“Eight hundred years, give or take.”
“That’s old enough to remember the Inquisition, medieval torture, things of that nature?” Veronica asked.
“Yep.”
Her turn to smile. “Mom’s still married,” she said sadly.
Christian shrugged.
“Too bad,” Veronica concluded just before something hit her in the head. She teetered. The smell of injured roses permeated the still night air. Charlene had thrown her bouquet, and Christian caught it after it had bounced off Veronica.
Veronica glanced up. Finding Charlene nothing but a pale floating speck in the distance, she wanted to cheer. Charlene was retreating. The Banshee had been bested. A first! A miracle!
“You,” Veronica said earnestly to Christian, “are worth every penny.”
“My pleasure,” he said. “Especially since you won’t have to pay anything at all.”
This was the epitome of romance, she wanted to shout. Christian Dale would take this crap from her family and tear up her credit card receipt?
Accepting the bouquet he handed her, hoping there were no barbed wires around the stems, and that the custom attached to the tossing of the flowers really was something a bit more metaphysical, as in the person catching them really would be the next to marry . . . Veronica cocked her head thoughtfully, fearing to speak, afraid she would cry. For the first time ever, she felt as though she had accomplished something special. As if she was something special.
“There’s one thing that bothers me,” she finally said. “You really are a vampire?”
“Afraid so. Can I tell you about it?”
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“Sometime after second base.”
Veronica and the Vampire Page 9
