Then he reached for the chocolate truffle.
It was large. Bigger than a golf ball. He should’ve eaten it in two bites. Maybe three. But no, he had to pop the whole goddamn thing into his mouth at once. But as soon as he bit down, he knew he was in trouble.
“What the fuck!” He spit it out, his hand flying up to cover his emerging fangs. He jumped to the sink and began rinsing the taste from his mouth.
“You…don’t like it?” she said from behind. “It’s a chocolate truffle. With rum.”
Like hell it was. He coughed and choked, trying to ignore the sudden and powerful call of her blood, but all he could think about was sinking his fangs into the tender skin of her neck. Then swallowing. And swallowing. And swallowing.
“You okay?” She touched his back and he flinched.
“No. Get away!” His voice was raw and frayed, and his willpower began to unravel.
He wished he could implant a suggestion to make her barricade herself in her office, but that would mean getting closer to her, and there was no way he trusted himself enough to do that.
That truffle—that delicious fucking truffle—was made with Sweet. And now that he’d had a taste, his dark nature wanted more.
Chapter 4
Selena blinked a few times, trying to understand what was happening. One minute, Mateo had been perfectly fine, asking about her father and eating a sampling of desserts she’d made, and the next minute, he was going completely mental.
Without a word or backward glance, he stormed from the kitchen as if he couldn’t get out fast enough and slammed the door behind him.
Was he…actually leaving? She crossed to the window and looked through the blinds. The rain had really picked up and it was almost full dark, so it took a moment for her to spot him. Surprisingly enough, he wasn’t in the parking lot getting into his car. Instead, he was pacing in front of another business two doors down with his hands clasped behind his head. It looked like he was taking in deep gulps of air.
She wasn’t sure whether or not to go out there to see if there was something she could do to help. In the end, she stayed inside and cleaned up the mess. She still had no idea why he’d turned up out of the blue after so long. It hurt, actually, that he thought he could stroll back into her life like it was no big deal. That they could chat and be friendly despite what had happened. Whatever his motives were for this little visit, she hardened her resolve not to let him affect her.
When she was done cleaning, she pulled the few remaining truffles from the refrigerator and stared at them. These were the rejects. The ones that didn’t look as pretty as the ones that Paula had hopefully taken. Why had Mateo reacted so negatively when he took a bite? She didn’t understand. She’d tasted them earlier. So had Paula. They weren’t that bad, were they?
And then a thought occurred to her. What if her customer had the same reaction as Mateo? That would not be good. As she went to test one again, the door banged open, and she jerked her hand away.
Mateo stood in the doorway, cool evening air pouring into the kitchen from behind him. His hair and the tops of his shoulders glistened from the rain. “Do not touch those.”
“Why?” she asked, more confused than ever. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Throw them in the sink,” he growled. “Better yet, flush them down the toilet.”
The toilet? What the hell? “Mateo, I don’t—”
“You do have a bathroom here, don’t you?” The way the shadows fell across his face, his irises looked almost completely black. It was more than a little unnerving.
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then fucking do it, Selena.”
The harsh language surprised her. When they’d been together, he’d rarely spoken like that. And never toward her.
She took the tray of truffles, carried them into the small bathroom and flushed them. Then she returned to the kitchen. “Better?”
“Now wash the pan and your hands.”
Okay, this was more than just a little weird. “Can you at least close the door?” she said, setting the tray in the sink, turning on the hot water, and squirting it with dish soap. “It’s cold.”
“I can still smell it.”
Oh my God, is he serious?
“Smell what?” Exasperated, she turned on the overhead stove ventilation. “The chocolate? The rum? I don’t get it, Mateo. Have you suddenly developed deadly allergies? Because if you’re allergic to chocolate now, why did you even attempt to eat that truffle in the first place?”
“It’s not the chocolate I’m allergic to,” he said through clenched teeth.
Just then, she spotted a large moth flying in through the open door where he stood. “Ack! A miller!”
He snatched it out of the air with lightning-fast reflexes.
“Don’t kill it,” she demanded. “Just put it outside and shut the door.”
He did what she wanted him to do, and when he turned back around, his eyes looked normal again, if not a little amused. “I forgot how much you hate moths,” he said, the edge in his voice gone. “I don’t get what’s so scary about them. It’s not like they bite.”
She shivered. “Their bodies. They’re just so…thick and furry. And they flutter. And have that powdery stuff on their wings. Ugh. I can’t stand them. Now go wash your hands. You touched it.”
With the shadow of a smile on his lips, Mateo headed into the bathroom. Selena took the opportunity to check her phone. Paula still hadn’t replied.
She fired off another quick text. Everything okay?
He returned a moment later, wiping his hands on a paper towel. “Who made those truffles?”
“I did.”
He frowned. “What’s in them?”
“Not a lot. Just some high quality chocolate—the kind I always use—some cream and a splash of rum. Two different kinds.”
A tiny muscle in his jaw ticked, indicating his inner turmoil. She recalled how he used to do that when dealing with the intense pressure he faced from his parents. His father was some sort of powerful businessman. Banking, maybe. And his mother sat on various executive boards. Attend this exclusive boarding school, they’d tell him. Apply to these prestigious colleges. Do this in order to follow in your father’s footsteps. And for godssake, don’t lower your standards and settle for that townie girl you only see in the summer.
“The rum,” he barked. “Get me the bottles.”
She took them off the shelf and handed them to him. Crossing her arms, she waited for an explanation.
He completely ignored the brand name bottle and focused on the unlabeled one, holding it up to the light. “Where did you get this?”
“My customer provided it for me to use.” She explained that she’d thought it tasted a little strange and that the truffles hadn’t set up like they normally did, so she’d had to use both types.
With a disgusted look on his face, he stared at the bottle. “Yeah, it’s this rum all right.”
A feeling of dread began to form in her abdomen. Why hadn’t she listened to her intuition and not used it? “Something’s…wrong with it?”
“You could say that.”
“Oh my God.” As the potential demise of the business she’d worked so hard to build flashed before her eyes, she pulled out her phone. Having your best customer get sick from your food would not be a good thing.
“Who are you calling?” he asked.
“Paula’s not picking up, so I’m calling my customer directly. I need to warn—”
“No.” He took the phone from her, and before she could protest, he stormed out with it and the bottle.
She stood there in the center of the kitchen, mouth open in stunned silence. He returned a moment later, the bottle gone. A thick thatch of hair hung over one eye, making him look wild and uncontrollable.
“Get your things, Selena.” When she didn’t immediately jump to do as she was told, he growled, “Now.”
Like hell she was. She needed answers. “You can’
t just show up out of the blue like this, literally freak out, then order me around like a damned lunatic.”
“Selena. Now.”
“No,” she said, holding out her hand. “Not until you tell me what’s going on and give me back my phone.”
His eyes glinted with an icy, unbending coldness. “You’ve got two choices. Either you walk out with me or I carry you. What is it going to be?”
She’d never seen him like this before. When they’d been together, sure, he’d been passionately protective of her at times, but he’d also been sweet, kind, and very considerate. She’d never felt as if she didn’t have a choice.
Surely, he hadn’t gotten into that gross pickup artist world, where guys treated you like a piece of shit thinking that would help them score. Or maybe he was confused about the BDSM world. Although she didn’t know much about it outside of the erotic romances she loved to read, it seemed to her that he was acting like a bossy-ass Dom who considered her his Sub. Well. If that was what he was into these days, fine, but they didn’t have an agreement or understanding. He couldn’t barge in and expect her to do what he said. That wasn’t the way her world worked. He was going to treat her respectfully, like an equal, or he could get the hell out.
Folding her arms over her chest, she stood her ground. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Mateo Carerra, until you tell me exactly what is going on. Starting with why you came here.”
“Suit yourself.”
In the blink of an eye, he swept her up and slung her over his shoulder like a freaking sack of potatoes.
What the hell!
“Put me down,” she screamed, kicking at his chest with her knees and feet, and pummeling his back with her fists. Screw that he was bigger and more muscular than she remembered. She didn’t care. She kept wailing on him with all her might. How utterly arrogant and appalling of him to do this to her. It was wrong. Humiliating. And so unlike the man that she remembered.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath.
Yay. She must’ve hit a sensitive spot.
Little good that did however, because he only gripped her legs tighter. After grabbing her handbag from the back room, he locked up the place without shifting her from his shoulder.
She literally hated Mateo Carrera with the fiery passion of a thousand blazing suns.
And before she knew it, they were in his car, speeding down the highway.
Chapter 5
A multitude of stars twinkled in the inky sky above them when Mateo and Selena exited the car. He’d forgotten how dark it got at Broadmoor, his childhood home that sat high atop a bluff overlooking the Gulf Islands. The sound of chirping crickets filled the air and a lone coyote howled in the distance.
The stone entryway steps were covered in a thin layer of algae. Mateo made the mistake of touching Selena’s elbow when she slipped.
“Get your hands off me,” she snapped, jerking away from him.
If looks could kill, he’d be long dead by now.
Selena hadn’t spoken a word during the entire drive. Right shoulder pressed against the passenger door, arms crossed, she’d sat as far away from him as possible and stared into the darkness as his sports car hugged each winding curve in the road.
But he’d done what he needed to do. And he would continue to use any means necessary, including acting like a total caveman, until she was safe. That was all that mattered. Everything else, including how she felt about him, came second.
Inserting his key into the ornate lock, he pushed open the heavy wooden doors. They creaked from neglect. A musty dampness met his nostrils, and he wondered if there was a leak in the roof somewhere. With four years of no maintenance in this rainy, windswept climate, the house was bound to have some issues. He reached for the nearest light switch and flipped it on only to have nothing happen. Fuck. Of course. No electricity.
He’d need to get ahold of one of his brothers. Hopefully one of them could get the power turned back on at Broadmoor without him having to contact their parents, because he seriously couldn’t deal with them right now.
“Great,” she muttered under her breath. “Could this night get any worse?”
Luckily, he found a few candles and a pack of matches in a nearby sideboard. Soon the entire entryway was bathed in flickering light.
Selena drew in a sharp breath. “How big is this place anyway?”
His parents hadn’t approved of him dating a human girl, particularly one who was a sweetblood, so he’d never brought her here before. He could still see the distasteful look on his father’s face whenever Selena’s name was mentioned.
“If you’re talking about just the mansion,” Mateo replied, “there are fifteen bedrooms and suites spread throughout the various wings and two kitchens.”
“Holy smokes. I had no idea.” She gave a low whistle as she followed him into the adjacent sitting room. “Just the mansion? You mean there’s more?”
Her curiosity had overridden her fury…at least for the moment.
As he lit a fire in the huge stone fireplace and pulled the dust covers from the furniture, he told her about the carriage house down by the gates and the cottages nestled in the fir trees along the bluff. “My grandfather, who built the place, originally planned for it to be a resort.” A resort for other vampires, he thought, where they wouldn’t have to keep their true natures a secret.
“What happened?” she asked.
“My grandmother died while giving birth to my father. My grandfather was so heartbroken that he took his son and never came back.”
“That’s…so sad,” she said softly.
Unfortunately, his kind was well-acquainted with sadness and heartbreak. Successful pregnancies were rare. Many vampire couples who dreamed of having families remained childless for centuries.
“But your father came back.”
He nodded. “My parents wanted to restore the place to its original grandeur.”
She ran her hand along some of the ornately carved woodwork. “The workmanship and attention to detail is truly incredible. They must have loved it here.”
“They did.” Until he’d fucked up everything.
Unable to keep the emotion off his face, he turned away from her and threw open the French doors leading onto the terrace. A blast of icy air instantly cooled his skin, and he heard the surf crashing on the rocks far below.
God, he’d missed it here. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, smelling the saltwater and the nearby forest. He’d lived in a number of exciting cities since he left, but the wilds of British Columbia, with its supernatural beauty, was the only place where he ever felt truly at home.
Selena held the cup of tea Mateo had prepared for her and watched while he set a pillow and blanket on the sofa. A, as in singular, which meant what? That he wasn’t staying here?
Her heart beat out a low, ominous rhythm in her chest. “Are you planning to tell me what’s going on before you leave or are you just going to keep me guessing?”
“I have to deal with some things, but I’ll be back by dawn.”
She eyed the jacket he’d tossed on the piano bench nearby. Thinking about her cell phone and the car keys that were probably in one of the pockets, she set her cup down and took a casual step in that direction. She could continue to argue with him and get nowhere, or she could take matters into her own hands.
“Well, that’s comforting to know,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be taken against my will by my ex-boyfriend and spend the night alone in a creaky old mansion out in the middle of nowhere. Fun times. You really know how to make a girl’s dreams come true.”
His jaw remained set and rigid. “I’m…sorry, Selena. If there were another way, I’d have done it.”
She was tempted to stomp her foot and throw this tea cup at his head. She’d never been more frustrated in her entire life. “You keep saying that. Another way for what? You can’t keep me in the dark forever, Mateo.”
His hard expression faltered, and she glimpsed a sud
den sadness behind his eyes before he turned away. He still wasn’t going to tell her.
Sneezing a few times, she had an idea. “Can you open the doors to the balcony again? I think all this dust is getting to me.”
“Of course.”
She waited until he reached for the door handles before making her move. With her eyes on his broad back, she stepped closer to the piano bench. As he opened the doors, she slipped her hand into one of the pockets. Bingo. His keys. She wrapped her fingers around them and withdrew them slowly so they wouldn’t make a sound. She hesitated and thought about searching the pockets for her phone, then changed her mind. She probably couldn’t get a signal up here anyway.
Assessing the distance to the front door, she guessed it had to be twenty or thirty feet away. Inching backward, she noted that she’d have to get through both the sitting room and the entryway. Could she make it there before he noticed? There was a baby grand piano and two sofas between them, so it was possible. Once she got to the front door, could she then make it to the car? In high school, she’d been on the track team and had broken several sprinting records that stood to this day, so she knew she was fast. Or at least, she used to be.
She took a step backward, not taking her eyes from his back. And then another. But because she wasn’t looking where she was going, her calf bumped hard against the corner of the coffee table, jostling her cup and saucer, sending tea everywhere. Dang it. When she looked up, Mateo wasn’t near the open doors to the terrace anymore. He was gone.
What the—
“Going somewhere?”
She spun around and gasped. Mateo stood by the front door like a rigid sentry, his arms crossed over his chest. She blinked a few times, confused. He couldn’t possibly know that she’d taken his keys, but clearly, he did. She glanced over her shoulder at the piano and the sofas in the sitting room, then back at Mateo. How did he get over there so fast? How had she not seen him?
Her cheeks burned from embarrassment at being caught red-handed. It was worth the try though. She headed toward the cool air blowing in from the French doors and heard Mateo’s loud boot steps behind her. But when she stepped onto the balcony, she got another idea. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew the keys.
Taming the Vampire: Over 25 All New Paranormal Alpha Male Tales of Contemporary, Military, Shifters, Billionaires, Werewolves, Magic, Fae, Witches, Dragons, Demons & More Page 120
