Half in Love [Willie Krenshaw] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Lea Barrymire

  Chapter 3

  “Willie,” she said after about fifteen minutes of silence. She’d carefully backed out of Nick’s garage and headed home. She’d given him time to get a better handle on his emotions and given her the time to think through all the reasons she shouldn’t be taking some strange vampire back home with her. She played the whole almost sex scene through her mind and almost moaned with the memory. Her lust was still strong and hovering just under her skin. It would take only a touch of his skin to hers for her to be ready to take him into her body. How pathetic, Willie, really. She sighed and turned quickly to look at her passenger. “My name is Willie, well, Willimena, but I hate that name. Willie Krenshaw at your service.”

  “Thank you, Willie. For everything. For staying even though the rage was so close to claiming me. For giving me the honor of knowing your name. For stopping and trying to help me. I’m indebted to you and am so sorry for my behavior.” Nick’s voice was back to normal, but he sounded tired. He’d sat and stared out the passenger window for the entire trip, barely moving to breathe.

  “I understand the rage and instincts, I really do, so please don’t worry about it. Look, you can stay the day in my basement. Tomorrow night we can get you a hotel room downtown or closer to your house until you can get it cleaned up.” She glanced at his profile, lit by the clock within the truck. “I’m sorry that your home got trashed.”

  He sighed and turned to look at her. His eyes still held a light shimmer of crimson, but the rage was gone. Instead, his eyes held pain and bewilderment. He nodded once in her direction and then turned to look out the window again, drowning in his own thoughts.

  She kept silent the couple of minutes to her house. Her street was quiet when they stepped out of the truck. She’d bought a small row house on a side street a few years prior. It had a miniscule lot that she kept mowed and a single car garage that now housed her little Toyota. She was afraid to leave the Hummer in her driveway, but was too tired to move vehicles around. With a quick glance up and down the street, she ushered her stoic guest toward her front door.

  Just as they both stepped foot on the top step a slight breeze brought the scent of death to their noses. Willie whipped her head around and sniffed into the wind. Shit. That was dead human stench. She groaned her thought, “Will this night never end?”

  “We could leave it alone. Someone will stumble across it when the sun comes up,” Nick suggested. He sounded tired, and his words held no enthusiasm at all. She grinned.

  “Come on. What if it’s a kid that finds the body? We can at least call the police anonymously once we find it.” She jumped down the steps and turned her face into the breeze, slowly walking down the sidewalk toward an unknown human carcass. Nothing like a dead body to round out my night. She snickered under her breath.

  “What’re you laughing for? This isn’t funny,” he responded, surly and bitter. If he wasn’t so strong, she’d think he was whining. “I don’t find anything about this situation laughable.”

  “Well, sorry. I was just thinking that there wasn’t a better way to round out this evening than wandering the streets with a full-blooded vamp looking for a body that neither of us created. Sorry if my sense of humor irritates you.” She snorted at the look of consternation that crossed his face. “You do realize that you’re the first vampire I’ve ever met that hasn’t tried to kill me, right? I mean, that in and of itself is surreal. But, figure in the fact that you were drugged, you tricked me into going to your house, which was trashed by unknown vamps, and then came to my house, where we sniff out a dead body? You don’t find that funny?”

  “Well, I guess if you look at it that way, it is sort of morbidly funny or at least interesting,” he grumbled. “I would still rather leave the deader and go to ground. I’ve had a full enough evening already and am not looking forward to any more excitement.”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch… Come on, the smell is getting stronger. I bet it’s around the corner in the big dumpsters.” She took off running down the sidewalk and rounded the corner into an alley that had seen its share of bodies dumped in it over the ages. When Willie did research on the home she purchased, she found out that the alley and the store front it resided behind had been involved in multiple deaths due to drugs, territorial fights with gangs, and more of the same. She figured that it would give her plenty of donors to feed from when the need struck her.

  He huffed something about not bitching, just discussing, but she ignored him. His attitude had finally started to change, so his grumbling came out with a smile. She breathed a sigh of relief. Grumpy vampires are not good company and definitely would make her day irritating if she had to deal with him that way.

  Ahead she could see a slumped body in the alleyway and figured that they had found the source of the smell. It still wasn’t strong enough that a normal human would be able to detect it, but her senses were much better than a normal human’s. She walked slowly up to the immobile body and pulled her blade from its sheath.

  “Hey, buddy. You okay?” she asked quietly, nudging the person’s foot with hers. She waited for a response and listened for any sign of life, a heartbeat, breathing, anything. The lump was silent as well as the dead. She bent forward and nudged the body’s shoulder and watched in morbid fascination as the body slumped over with a thud. Rigor mortis must have set in.

  Willie turned to say something to Nick and noticed the anger etched across his strong face. The blood hadn’t completely drained from his irises from his earlier brush with the rage, so his face looked terrifying with an unnatural blood-tinged glow to his eyes and the grim set to his mouth. She turned to see what would’ve caused him to be angry and noticed the puncture marks on the stiff’s neck. Well, just craptastic. The body had been drained by a vamp, and it hadn’t been either of them. She whipped her head around trying to scent or see the culprit, praying they hadn’t caught wind of her and knew that she lived nearby. She scanned the rooftops and the surrounding doorways, almost willing the vamp to show so she could kill it. She didn’t like anyone hunting on her territory, and especially not killing in her neighborhood.

  “Nick, we have to go. I’ll call this in from a payphone around the corner, but we need to get out of here. I can’t lead a vamp to my house,” she whispered. She turned to grab his coat and would bodily pull him to her house if needed.

  “Okay, let me just sniff the neck. Maybe I know the son of a bitch that sucked him dry.” He stepped to the body and leaned in close, inhaling deeply near the wound. Willie gagged at the image playing out in front of her. A handsome, scary-as-hell vampire bent over a corpse sniffing at the gaping wound in the stiff’s neck. She knew how strong the stench would be from the body at that close range. She turned away and waited for him with her back to the body. She might be half vampire, but that little stunt was beyond anything she would be willing to do. She would rather pack up and leave her home than get that close to a decaying body. Yuck.

  “It isn’t anyone I know,” Nick said from beside her. “But, one of the scents on the body was similar to one at my house. I’d hate to sound like a conspiracy nut, but I think this deader and the demolition of my house could be connected or at least involve the same vampires.”

  “Great. Well, Shaggy, now that we’ve a mystery on our hands, let’s go feed Scooby and take a nap, shall we?” she said with a levity that she wasn’t sure was sarcastic or not. She was exhausted and needed to shut down her brain for a few hours to digest everything that had happened over the evening. She also needed to figure out what she was going to do with Mr. Hunky-Pants who supposedly was her mate. Freaking vampires.

  “You have a dog?” Willie turned to find the first true laughter in his eyes since they opened the door to his home. “You don’t strike me as the pet type.”

  “I was being sarcastic. Ass.” She grinned and strode toward the pay phone. She’d used this same phone a few times to call the police to report other crimes. An anonymous tip from this phone wasn’t anything new for the po
lice force. “I’m calling this in, and then we’re going home. I need a snack and then a shower.”

  She quickly contacted the emergency dispatch and filled in the overworked woman that answered the phone. With her Good Samaritan act finished for the night, she turned slowly and sighed heavily.

  “Let’s go. We need to get you in my basement before the sun rises and me into my bed.” She turned and started trudging toward her home when she sensed his approach. She only twitched slightly when he grabbed her hand and wound it around his arm in an old-fashioned gesture of chivalry. She glanced sideways to see Nick grinning mischievously at her. She scowled at the impish smile. “And, no, I’m not sharing the bed with you.”

  Nick chuckled at her and turned his attention away as they ambled down the sidewalk. She took a deep breath and let the mixture of his scent and the night air sooth her nerves. He’d soon be absconded away in her basement, safe from the daylight. That would leave her to be tortured by the scent of this gorgeous creature until nightfall. She wanted to at least enjoy the few feet they had left to walk. The memory of her wrapped around his body grinding herself against his cock brought heat and need back to her body. Everything inside her wanted to continue their exploration of each other. Fate was laughing her lovely head off at their plight.

  “We have company,” he breathed into her ear.

  “Shit.” She glanced around without really moving her head and noticed at least two guys watching them. Well, to Hell in a hand basket. She hadn’t even sensed them. Too much time woolgathering instead of paying attention to your surroundings. Her mind raced through possibilities, but nothing came to mind to get them out of this if the observing vamps wanted to take action. She wasn’t fast enough to escape, wasn’t strong enough to take on two of them, not after the night she’d already endured. She was just too tired to talk her way out of anything so a diplomatic solution was out of the question. As she tensed to run, she felt a warm hand slip around her waist. She shivered at the heat the simple touch sent through her body.

  “I have an idea. Follow my lead.” Nick turned her into his arms and slid his other hand around her waist. He looked her in the eye and grinned before bending toward her with clearly devious intent.

  She let out a gasp of surprise. Her eyes widened in fascination as she watched him lower his head and touched his lips to hers. The impulse to shove him away was silenced the moment his warm lips feathered over hers. Her eyes drifted closed as warmth flowed through her body, burning through all emotions other than passion. With a single meeting of lips, she could feel her body taking her right back to the heated need she had felt in his house. She breathed him in and sighed as her body warmed from his touch. She melted against his chest and invited him to deepen the kiss with a slow, sensual lick along his bottom lip. The hands that were going to push him away grabbed his coat instead, pulling him tight against her. Her breath hitched as he slowly invaded her mouth with a tentative stroke of his tongue along hers. She felt him maneuver her body with his, backing her against a pole. The cold metal was in startling contrast to the heat between their bodies. It almost pulled her from the kiss. Almost.

  Strong arms made her feel safe, secure, and treasured. This was so different than the harsh mauling she endured earlier when the rage rode him. This was how a woman should feel in the arms of a man she was attracted to. Their breath mingled as he deepened the kiss, twining his tongue with hers. She was overwhelmed and on the edge of losing control. She kept her hands fisted in his coat, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around his neck and hold him tightly against her body. His lips burned a hot trail across hers, leaving heated and aching flesh behind. Lips moved slowly along her jaw and nipped at her earlobe. A sharp canine bit into the flesh. Pain and pleasure flashed through her mind. He licked the hurt before taking her mouth again in a bruising, captivating kiss. She moaned into his mouth when he sucked her lower lip into his mouth, nipping and licking his way across her mouth. Slowly her control slipped as the heat he created replaced her nervousness with need. She wasn’t focused anymore on what Nick was, just that he was the male that her animal wanted. Hell, if she was honest with herself, he was who she wanted. She wanted to delve into his mouth, suck his tongue into her mouth, taste every inch of his body. She wanted to wrap her body around his and invite him into all of her intimate places.

  Her cougar was at the edge of her conscious mind, growling and pacing, looking for a way to take control and mark her mate. The cat was purring so loudly that Willie couldn’t hear anything else. The sound was making thought impossible. Her canines itched to elongate and take a nip at this male that had her at such odds with herself. Her clit was throbbing in time to her heart beat. Moisture was pooling in her slit, and the need to be filled by Nick was threatening to tear her sanity apart. She wanted to bite him, to leave her possessive mark on his body. The need to claim him as hers, so no other female would approach him, rushed through her. A growl rumbled in her chest before she could stop the sound.

  “Easy. Keep it together, Willie. They’re already starting to leave. Just another minute or two and we can leave.” Nick’s voice was rough with passion as he breathed the words into her ear. A shudder raced through her body from the intimate sound. She wanted to hear him talk dirty to her in that voice. She wanted to hear him yell her name in passion with that voice as they climaxed together. “I’m trying to keep your scent covered with mine so they don’t catch a whiff of your shifter side. You need to keep a handle on your animal because your scent is changing. Gods, but you smell hot and wet.”

  Willie groaned and nodded her understanding. She leaned into his body, burying her nose in his neck. His scent had driven all other thoughts from her mind, and she was so close to losing her handle on her human form. Lust flowed hot and thick through her veins. She wrapped her hands around his neck and thrust her fingers into his hair. With a swift movement she wrapped her legs around his waist and gave into her need for more contact. She ground her cleft against his groin. She noted with the very small part of her brain that was still functioning that he had a rather large cock, and it felt delicious against her heated core.

  “I’m sorry. I just need to feel you against me. Something is wrong with my cougar. She wants you, and I can’t keep her under control without more touching,” she gasped. A moan escaped her lips and was muffled by his coat. She kept her nose buried in his neck, sucking in his scent like it was oxygen itself. She licked at the skin she could reach with long, wet laps. He tasted like spices and heat.

  * * * *

  Nick’s chest vibrated with a deep growl. His arms tightened around her and slid down to cup her ass. He pulled her tighter against his body, pumping his hips to the same tempo she created with her hips. He was losing control of his own passion, and having a wiggling, little female body plastered to his own wasn’t helping. His canines had slid from his gums minutes ago, and the urge to sink them into her body and taste the feisty little morsel was almost too strong. This idea to cover her scent and get a taste of her lips in one action sounded like a brilliant idea when it started. Now, he wanted to bury himself in her heat and never leave. The soft little noises she was making in the back of her throat as she battled her animal were the most erotic things he’d ever heard.

  He slid one hand up under her shirt and stroked the soft skin along her lower back. He was momentarily astounded by the electric feel of her flesh under his hand. His need increased until he could think of nothing but the female in his arms. He ached to take her, make her his. He pushed her even harder against the metal pole to get as close to her as possible. When she subconsciously gave him access to her throat, he almost gave in to the overwhelming urge to bite into her. He wanted to taste her blood on his tongue, feel the flow of her hot essence entering his body, nourishing him. The faint glow of his eyes reflected on her pearly skin shocked him out of his bloodlust.

  With a shake of his head, he took control of his actions, taking one final taste of her lips before unwinding her legs
from around his waist and taking a reluctant step away from her. He chuckled darkly at their predicament as he tried to catch his breath. His heart was beating loudly in his ears, and it took every ounce of self-control to not grab her again. He noticed that Willie wasn’t having much more luck getting herself back under control. He could smell her arousal, and the sweet perfume made him want to bend her over a car parked along the street and plow into her like a rutting buck.

  “Well, that was interesting,” he said hoarsely. His fangs were just starting to retract, and the night air was beginning to bleed her scent from his nose. With one final shake of his head, he stood and stuck his arm out to her, an offer of civility after the carnal mauling.

  “Yeah, you could say that. Interesting. Devastating. Asinine,” she said in a whisper. She glanced up from her hunched position with need still blazing from her eyes. Her petite canines still peeked from between her lips. She noticed the arm he offered and hesitantly reached out to loop her arm in his. She sighed. “Let’s go home before something else goes wrong.”

  The two sauntered down the block arm in arm, both tensed for an attack. Nick took deep breaths, trying to scent their vamp brethren that had drained the poor schmuck dead in the alleyway. His eyes swung up and down the street, checking trees and rooftops. As he observed the surroundings, he couldn’t get his mind off the kiss he’d just shared or the warm body so close to his.

  Willie wasn’t anything like the females that he usually dated, but there was something so alluring about her. His feral side wanted her with a need that was breathtaking. He prided himself on his self-control. After two hundred and seventeen years of being a vampire, he was well versed in control. Control over hunger, lust, and greed. He worked for the Council as an investigator because of his legendary control. It had all but shattered a few moments ago with the lust that had poured through his body.