“Then I will crush them as I plan to crush the plebs.”
Chapter Four
“He doesn’t even know where I live so why am I getting all worked up over nothing?” Aureliann paced around her living room wringing her hands. The talk with Temperance had helped but the problem still remained. Was Prince Valdemar who he said he was?
“Do I believe him or do I check myself into a hospital room with rubber walls? The laundromat thing could have been a fluke and— Oh great, now I’m talking to myself.” She threw her hands up into the air. “I just know he knows where I am.” Aureliann felt it in her bones and as much as this scared her, she wanted him to come to her. She walked over and peered outside the window once more. The street outside looked the same as it did any other night. Aureliann had changed outfits a dozen times since showering, finally settling on a nightdress to indicate she did not care whether he came or not. “Anyway, that’s the plan,” she muttered and jumped when the doorbell rang. She had not meant to race to answer it.
“But then I never meant to have sex in a laundromat.” Aureliann threw the door open. The three small bodies belonging to the kids across the road clutching books of raffle tickets stood there. “Oh what are you kids doing wandering around in the dark?” She grabbed her purse and bought some raffle tickets as they knew she would. She was a soft touch. “Now go home.” Aureliann stood and waited until they were safely inside their own home before shutting the door. She looked down at the tickets. “Great. Just what I need. A trailer full of beer.”
“I have never understood the human need for intoxication.”
Aureliann screamed and the tickets and her purse flew out of her hands. She swung around and saw him. He was everything she remembered and more. She felt hot and dizzy like she had drunk too much wine.
“How did you get in here? What took you so long? Why are you here?” The questions shot out of her mouth before she gave herself time to think.
Valdemar laughed in delight. “Hmm, which question do I answer first, lovely?” He moved toward her. “I have the ability to appear when I want. I wanted to give you some time to think and you know why I’m here, Aureliann.”
Oh boy. The look in his eyes made Aureliann’s heart beat wildly. I want him. I want him. I want him.
“I don’t need you,” she lied as she backed away from him. If he came any closer, Aureliann knew she was going to indulge in something really dumb and wonderfully delicious.
“Liar,” Valdemar responded, the words soft and filled with knowing, as he circled her.
The way he stalked her made Aureliann shiver in anticipation. She moved as he did. “You’re an interruption in my life.” She knew her boring, tedious life would never be the same again.
Valdemar nodded as he continued his pursuit. “As you are to mine but I welcomed it when you called me.”
Aureliann gulped. It would take nothing to rush into his arms and taste him once more yet this was all too soon, too sudden. Surely there had to be something wrong with this? Why can’t I work out what?
“But many women must read that book and call out to you.” And when did I accept you were Prince Valdemar? Or have I always known?
“There are no women for me but you, Aureliann.” He reached forward and took her hand.
Aureliann trembled as his lips grazed her palm. “That’s all very romantic but I think my desperation for sex called you more than any idea of linked souls calling out to one another.” Having an obsession for the book was one thing. Making someone, even a paperback prince, believe it was another. It was wrong to lead anyone on.
“No, I’m here because I have waited for years for you to call. I have dreamed of finding you, touching you, loving you.” Valdemar’s voice was low and husky with emotion. “Maybe there is a desperation in that. Needing to be with the only one you could love can make it so.”
Love? Aureliann felt hot and cold chills run through her body. “Dreams are one thing, prince, but reality is another. And I want more than just sex.” The Vampire‘s Kiss was more than just sex. It was about love and longing and the desire to be who you wanted to be with the only person who understood you.
“As do I.”
When she looked into his eyes, Aureliann wanted to believe the whole fairytale she was caught up in.
“I don’t do uncomplicated sex. The laundromat was unusual.” Bizarre. Crazy. Wonderful.
Valdemar pulled her body against his and sighed. “I want complicated with you, Aureliann.”
“I am the queen of complicated and this is not rational,” she squirmed against him, unsure whether she was trying to free herself or mold her body to his. “You’re not supposed to exist.”
He smiled. “Yet I do.”
“Yes.” The heat of his body was so good against hers that she gave in and relaxed against him.
“What are you thinking?” Valdemar placed soft kisses on her forehead, then her temples.
Oh boy. When he kissed her nose and rubbed his against hers, she sighed. He was so sexy and sweet it was hard to concentrate on all the reasons she shouldn’t be curling her arms around his body.
“You don’t know me and what I know about you I have learned from a book.” And yet as silly as that sounded, Aureliann knew that was not the reason she was fighting what she was feeling. She was scared of giving too much of herself and being left wanting more.
Valdemar kissed each cheek then sucked on her chin. He grinned as she gasped. “Let’s learn more about each other.” His hands slipped the straps of her nightie down.
Aureliann grabbed at the fabric before it could fall at her feet. “You want to learn by sex?”
“It’s a good way to start or we can chat,” Valdemar added, his voice light and casual even though they both knew the moment was anything but. “Tell me about your life, your family.” The sudden pain in her eyes was evident to him. He reached out to her.
“They’re all gone now.” Aureliann explained in a calm voice what had happened. Maybe it should not still hurt as much as it did but it was not a feeling she could stop no matter how much she told herself to toughen up. “My cousin was the last one left and he couldn’t deal with the pain of my parents’ passing. He killed himself.” Even though it had happened two years ago, the pain was still raw.
“Life is not fair sometimes.”
“No.” But whining about it got you nowhere. She wanted to get back to the topic at hand. “Why are you here? Why me?” Aureliann was no more special than anyone else.
“I told you why.” The answer was obvious to Valdemar.
His total faith was amazing. “Yeah but it has to be more than just some strange woman calling your name.”
Valdemar shrugged his shoulders. “Why? Can’t it be something as simple as love?”
Could she love this man? Oh yes. “What if I’m not the one? What if you have it wrong? What if I wake up and—”
“And I’m gone?” he added.
“Yes.” The proverb about it being better to “have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” was a load of crap in Aureliann’s mind. It did not fit the real world.
“That will never happen. I am not a man who makes decisions lightly, Aureliann. I am ruled by instinct and fact. The fact is we are meant to be together.” Valdemar took her hands and placed them on his chest. Her nightdress slithered to the floor. “I feel it in my heart.”
His heart was beating at the same pace as hers. When Aureliann looked into his eyes she wanted to believe him and she rarely felt that way about anyone.
“If you really feel that this is wrong for you then tell me to walk away and I will, Aureliann. I would never ask anything of you that you did not wish to give freely.”
And that was the thing. She could not tell him that. Those words would be impossible to speak. “I can’t say that.”
“Then let me love you as you should be loved. That’s all I ask.”
There was only one possible answer to his request. “Yes.” She gather
ed up her courage and stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his. Kissing Valdemar was such a sensual treat, as he made her mouth feel like it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted as he devoured, sucked and licked. “You have too many clothes on,” she mumbled breathlessly as they parted. If she was going to do this, Aureliann wanted it done properly.
Valdemar did not need to be told twice. He undressed so quickly that he stumbled against her in his haste.
Once naked, his cock jabbed at her stomach, bringing back memories of the first moment she held him within her. “Turn around. I want to see your royal ass, your highness.”
Valdemar grinned and turned at her request. He jumped when Aureliann stroked the tattoo.
“Very nice.” The dark blue ink etched the intricate ankh perfectly into his flesh. It was even better than she had imagined it would be. His butt muscles flexed under the caress of her hand.
“It’s all for you, lovely.”
“You say the nicest things.”
He turned and moved toward her. “You make me want to be nice.” Before she could speak his arm curved around her waist and his mouth was on her nipple, sucking hard.
Aureliann’s hands moved to his hair and tugged at the leather tie. She wanted to see the beautiful hair flowing free over his shoulders. On any other man it would not have looked sexy but on him it was so hot that she felt a rush of moisture between her legs. “Oh Val, you are gorgeous.” And he is mine.
Valdemar’s head jerked up and his eyes met hers. “You called me Val.”
“You don’t like it?” Aureliann was not big on nicknames herself but the name just seemed to come naturally to her. His response was to kiss her so hard that she staggered against him.
“I love it.” His head once more went to her breasts, lapping at her soft flesh.
Valdemar’s hands were on her ass and Aureliann knew that his control was shot just like hers. Her legs hit the sofa. “Condom.” She was on fire with need.
“Of course.” He let go of her and rifled through his pockets, retrieving several. Valdemar’s eyes glowed with hunger. “On the sofa on your hands and knees, lovely.”
“Um…”
“Ass up.”
“Oh…” Aureliann had a flabby ass and it was not something she wanted on display.
Valdemar shook his head. “Stop agonizing about unimportant things.” He ripped the condom from its packaging.
His cock was pointing skyward and any thoughts of her fat ass melted. He was right. It wasn’t important, only their being together was. Aureliann climbed on the sofa on her hands and knees. She looked down. “Oh look, a two-dollar coin and my red hair clip. I have been looking everywhere for that.” Sex was indeed a good thing.
Valdemar laughed at her words. “No one is like you, Aureliann.” He moved behind her on the sofa.
She heard the intake of his breath as his hands went to her ass. The heat of them meeting her bare flesh was exquisite.
“I want to come just looking at your ass, lovely.”
“Really?” Aureliann usually wanted to puke when she saw it. She had spent most of her life covering her butt. She could feel his cock prodding at the crack. Now he was going to cover her ass and that was better than any fabric. She spread her legs wider to receive him. Aureliann sighed when he leaned over her body and his hair fell down to brush against her skin. “You are so sexy.”
“But only for you.” Valdemar thrust inside her in one long stroke then pulled out completely and did it again.
Aureliann cried out each time as he filled her fast and left just as quickly. It was an exciting rush of feeling that made her want more. As he impaled her once more, she said, “Stay.” His growl of satisfaction made her push her ass back for more. Aureliann dropped her face down against the cushions and enjoyed the man who rode her with such a furious passion. When he slipped his finger into her anus and moved it back and forward in time with his cock, she gasped. It was such an unusual and not unwelcome feeling. When a second finger pushed through the muscle, she moaned incoherently against the padding below.
“What?” Valdemar asked as he stopped momentarily and kissed under her ear.
“I said you are fucking fantastic,” she told him, neglecting to add the bit she mumbled about loving him. That had come as a surprise to her and Aureliann wanted to sit on that feeling for a while.
Valdemar laughed at her words and spanked her butt with his free hand. “Want me to stop?” he teased.
“I will kill you if you do.” Aureliann never wanted this feeling to stop. It was all about heat and passion and a need so urgent that it was beyond rational explanation.
“I can’t have that, lovely. We have much to enjoy in our lives.” He started pumping in and out of her once more.
Aureliann yelled into the cushioning as the orgasm tore through her body. His cock and his fingers drove on relentlessly, making her shake as waves of intense pleasure exploded throughout her body. “You are so good at this,” she panted as she gripped the sofa and tried to give back what Valdemar had given her. The man was a human pile driver as he pistoned on within her. When she felt him shake and shudder, Aureliann smiled. She was not the only one out of control here.
Valdemar fell forward over her body, squashing her down against the cushions. “You exhaust me, woman, but I like it.” He pulled out from her body and rolled them around so she lay at his side. “And I love you, Aureliann.”
She was not ready to say those words back, instead she kissed his lips and snuggled against him to enjoy the moment.
Valdemar smiled. This was the happiest he had been in a long time. His woman was wrapped in his arms and there was a peacefulness he felt with Aureliann that he felt with no other. I would give up the crown just to be with her. He sighed. Unfortunately it wasn’t as simple as that. If he gave up and Victor won then his people would be under constant threat and he could not allow them to suffer because his cousin was jealous of him.
“You will like my home.” Valdemar knew the simple act of having Aureliann by his side would make a huge difference in his life. He wanted to share his days, his thoughts and his concerns with the woman he loved. He wanted to shake off the loneliness of immortality. He wanted those things that only true love could bring.
Aureliann turned in his arms to look at him. “Is it really a castle?”
Valdemar smiled at the awed tone of her voice. That was one of the many things he loved about her. Aureliann was unpretentious. She said what she thought and her words were not measured as if she was scared of what others would think of her. That’s how he wanted to rule his world. And with her by my side I will. That she believed he was who he said he was made everything so much easier.
“Yes, and we’ll be happy there.” Valdemar kissed her lips, savoring the taste of her. He longed to taste the life force of her blood but he would wait until she was ready to permit him that privilege.
“We?” Aureliann looked at him in confusion as she started to sit up. “What do you mean?”
Wasn’t it obvious? “You’re going to marry me, lovely, and live with me in Serawych.”
Chapter Five
“Oh no I’m not.” Marriage? Living in a fairytale land? Aureliann pushed away from him. The loss of his body heat was like a reality check to her.
“You have to marry me.” Valdemar made it sound like there was no other way.
Sentences with “have to” in them always irritated Aureliann. She was not someone who took kindly to anyone arranging her life in accordance with what they wanted from her. “Why?”
“What do you mean why?” He looked at her in puzzlement. “We love each other.”
“Says who?” Aureliann sat up and grabbed at a nearby cushion and used that to cover her body from his gaze. It was a little too late for that of course but the direction of this conversation required focus on the facts at hand and not the body parts that were to hand.
Valdemar raised up, totally oblivious to his naked state. “Are you s
erious?”
“Are you?” The concern in his voice scared her. Calling out his name and him turning up was one thing. Marriage and castles were entirely another. “Look, prince, we had sex. I don’t know how it works in your world but it doesn’t mean the whole ‘I do’ thing naturally follows.”
“What does it mean?”
“Okay, I actually accept you’re a prince from a faraway land. I accept you’re a vampire but I’m not marrying you or anyone because I don’t want to.” Marriage was not something Aureliann had ever contemplated. That was for other people.
He looked at her in amazement. “I don’t believe this. You called me. Thomas said that you would—”
“Oh right, Thomas is your mentor, isn’t he?” Aureliann remembered him from the book. She would have liked to have met him. He sounded like an interesting man. “How is his arthritis by the way?” She recalled reading that it had slowed him down from a once active lifestyle.
Valdemar raised his eyebrow in disbelief. “You’re more interested in discussing Thomas?”
That was because Thomas wasn’t there in front of her all hot and naked and now cranky looking. Aureliann wondered if many people disobeyed Valdemar. Just because he was royalty didn’t mean she was about to bow and scrape and fit in with his whims.
“Well, he’s an old man.”
“So it’s safe to be interested in him and not me?” Valdemar growled the words out in frustration. “Scared of giving yourself, Aureliann? Scared of grown-up emotions?”
Prince Vampire Page 4
