by Selena Blake
Avery turned from the window and gave the two men a come-hither glance. Despite Avery’s flickering eyelashes and perky chest, the bellmen kept their gaze focused on bringing the bags inside.
But Avery wasn’t the type to get miffed or be put off. If Coco knew her friend at all, the other vamp had been silently tabulating eligible partners since they’d arrived.
“You wanted an adventure, Coco. Let the fun begin,” Avery said, stripping out of her tank top. She’d worn her bikini under her clothes, wanting to be ready for the beach the instant they landed. She pulled open the doors and the roar of the ocean met Coco’s ears.
The dark-eyed beauty gave them a quick smile, shoved the yoga pants to the ground and took off for the water. That got the men’s attention.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” V said, handing them a tip. They bowed as if they were in the presence of royalty and then retreated silently.
“It’s time for my bath,” V said, disappearing into one of the cottage’s three bedrooms. Everyone knew that V had one room to herself and the rest of them would share. That’s just the way it was. Coco no longer minded. And Izzy was a tidy roomie.
She moved into the room she and Izzy would share and hoisted her suitcase onto the bench at the end of the bed. He was alive. On this island. What were the chances?
She’d thought of him on and off for the last one hundred years, always in awe of the connection she’d felt. Always wondering if he was still alive, and if so, what he was doing with his life. So much had changed in the last century. For the world and for their species.
“Was Dmitri really that boring?” Ceara asked, settling herself on the bed next to Izzy.
The name of her ex shattered the warm fuzzy feeling inside of her. “He was… I don’t know. It wasn’t right.”
“How do you know when it’s right?” Ceara asked.
Ahh, youth. Curious and too young to know any better. Coco carried her bag of shoes into the closet and contemplated her answer as she unpacked them. Flip flops in every color, high heels that would turn a man’s head at fifty paces, and her favorite bunny slippers to wear around the cottage.
“I think it’s right when you can’t live without each other. When you can’t imagine the next few months without him in your life. When you want him to be there always so that you can tell him the most mundane things about your day. When you share a passion that can’t be extinguished.”
Slowly, she became aware of her surroundings again and the fact that she was twisting the carry-all into a little ball. She licked her lips, glanced between the two young vamps on her bed and tucked the carry-all into the larger suitcase.
“So…” Ceara peeked at Izzy from beneath her lashes. Then she turned her gaze back to Coco. “So you think sexual satisfaction is… important?”
Coco snickered. “Sure thing, honey.” But she sobered. Ceara was young and inexperienced. “Dmitri and I weren’t compatible that way.” She settled onto the bed. “He made me feel like a whore for wanting sex. And he was too busy. Uninterested in me. When we started dating, I thought he was so handsome. Sophisticated. But he didn’t understand where I come from. He didn’t appreciate me or my experiences.”
“Why didn’t you leave sooner?”
Coco expected the round of twenty questions. It’d been a month since she’d broken things off with Dmitri. It was only a matter of time before her friends wanted the whole story. She stared up at the ceiling that soared high overhead. A tropical themed fan slowly stirred the air. “I guess I thought I could change him. I expected that one day he’d want to introduce me to his family and friends. He never asked to meet mine. Every so often he’d sucker me back in with a smooth line and a scorching kiss. That’s a lesson, cherie, make sure you like him outside of his kisses.”
The two women laughed and Coco rose. She headed for the kitchen and looked through the refrigerator. She needed wine, not microscopic liqueur bottles.
“He is very handsome,” Ceara said, settling herself onto a barstool.
“I agree.” Handsome vamps were a dime a dozen. Drop dead gorgeous werewolves on the other hand -- nope. Not going there. “But he’s also laser focused on business. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He was relieved I ended things. I just need to get out of my funk and remember that I’ve got a lot of living left to do.”
“Maybe you’ll find your soul mate on the island,” Ceara said, brightening. It was the most animated Coco had seen her in a long time.
“No way. I’m here to scratch a few notches in my bedpost and fill up my little black book.”
“That werewolf seemed interested,” Ceara prompted. Izzy snorted from her spot on the couch. She pushed aside the magazines and laid out a game of solitaire on the enormous coffee table.
Oh gods. “I’m gonna go get a drink. Don’t have too much fun without me.”
“Coco,” Izzy called, abandoning the game. “Wait for me.”
Chapter Two
“How about dat one?” Izzy asked, her gaze locked on a massive man across the patio. He wore an old Fedora, swim trunks and flip flops. “Fine demon specimen, do you not agree?”
Coco nodded even though she couldn’t see his horns. There were so many scents swirling around, she had a hard time determining who was what species. To her, he looked more like a were of some sort. “Pass,” Coco said and reached for her wine. The island served the best cocktail she’d had in a long time. A perfect mixture of blood and Burgundy.
“Pass? Again?” Izzy asked in her delightful Russian accent, her blonde eyebrows raised.
Coco nodded. She wasn’t ready to part with her drink just yet. One more glass and she’d feel the beginning of a delicious buzz. Once she had a buzz she’d be able to forget he was on the island, probably with some stacked blonde werewolf, and could set about finding a partner of her own. Just for the week, of course.
Izzy screwed up her mouth in the way that told Coco she was being too picky. But Coco couldn’t help it. The parade of men didn’t live up to him. And knowing that he was still alive, and somewhere on this island, made her want to see him again. She wanted to see if the connection between them was just as strong as it had been all those years ago. That the fluttery feeling wasn’t just a momentary attraction to broad shoulders and a wicked smile.
“I need to finish my wine first,” Coco reasoned. She couldn’t tell her friend about the werewolf or the connection between them.
Not everyone had gotten past the hard feelings between their species. And some, more than others, had a legitimate reason to avoid the beasts all together. Izzy being a prime example. And if she had any idea of the attraction Coco felt to a werewolf, there would be way too many questions and not enough wine on this island.
Lust was as common as breathing, but the connection she’d felt with the wolf… unlike anything she’d felt before or since. She’d spent the last one hundred and eleven years wondering why it’d felt so much stronger. So much deeper. And why on earth she would be feeling that way about the enemy.
“You Parisians and your wine.”
“You Russians and your vodka,” Coco replied with a smile. Though tonight, she’d talked Izzy into the house cocktail and the other vamp had downed it almost immediately.
“How about him? Vamp, definitely,” Izzy said, watching a tall man in pair of swim trunks. Coco admired the view. He could have been a cover model in his past life.
Coco appreciated that Izzy didn’t bring up Dmitri again, especially when they were on the prowl for men. Dmitri was a bitter reminder that she should never repress her true nature.
“Well, I see someone who makes me, how do you say, purr? If you do not want, then I shall help myself. You will be all right by yourself?” Izzy perched on the edge of her seat.
“Go on. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, cherie.”
As Izzy made her way over to the supposed-demon, a waiter came over to Coco’s table to retrieve her friend’s empty glass. Coco ordered another cocktail, and he nodded before fla
shing.
To be fair, werewolves and vampires hadn’t been at war in over one hundred years. He wasn’t the enemy anymore, and she’d long gotten over that way of thinking. In her opinion, life was too long to hold grudges. And the world was just too small.
The waiter returned with a fresh cocktail, and she tossed it back in one gulp. She needed to get, what was the word the Americans used? Snookered? Yes. That sounded right. Snookered. She needed to get snookered and fast.
Without a buzz her mind asked too many questions. Like: was that why things hadn’t worked out with Dmitri? Could one encounter a century ago have held her back from making a relationship work? Was that why she was still single? Chasing an elusive fantasy? A fantasy man?
She screwed her mouth up.
If that was the case then there had to be more than simple lust going on between her and the werewolf.
* * * * *
The witching hour was in full swing when Latham sidled up to the end of his favorite bar. There were plenty of watering holes scattered across his island, but the Tiki themed oasis just outside his office was the heart of the resort. Just as the kitchen was the heart of a home, this place fed his guests… in more ways than one.
Cal, one of his top bartenders, glanced his way and nodded. Latham took a seat, and rather than have his staff wait on him, conjured a rum and Coke.
Three spaces down sat a werewolf with something heavy on his mind. He could see it in the other man’s posture, the way he gazed into his drink but obviously didn’t see it. Love lost. That’s the bet Latham would make. A chance at love?
It took less than a millisecond to enter the wolf’s unguarded thoughts. A few seconds after that, he had his answer. A vampire. Make that, a beautiful vampiress with skin like chocolate. Latham traced the wolf’s memory. Ahh… yes. She was beautiful. Unusual. Sensual. Familiar.
His lips curved into a smile.
And currently staying on Latham’s island.
* * * * *
Grayson West braced his forearms against the bar and sipped his Scotch. The slow burn did little to numb his mind or the memories that haunted him. It would take at least a whole bottle to forget the blue eyes that called to him like an aqua-colored moon. Blue eyes he’d seen once before. Blue eyes he’d never, in one hundred and eleven years, forgotten. Damn, she looked good. Modern. Fashionable. Much more appealing without double-edged daggers in her hands.
The bartender stopped by to refill his drink, and he gave a nod of thanks. So much for blowing off steam before he shipped out on his next assignment. Being hit square between the eyes with a relic from his past wasn’t how he’d intended to spend his leave. A quick fuck to take care of his most primitive needs. Had that been too much to ask? Now he wouldn’t be satisfied with anyone while the alluring black beauty was stuck in his mind like a broken record.
Damn.
What was she doing here anyway? The obvious answer: she looking for some action of her own. Vampires were insatiable from what he knew, not that he’d ever slept with one.
But she’d been with a group of women. Friends? Perhaps they planned to take advantage of the island’s other amenities. The idea that she was on the prowl for a lover made his stomach ache like a rancid hunk of steak.
He downed the Scotch and signaled the bartender to fill the glass again. While he waited, he turned on the swivel stool and surveyed the room. In a dim alcove, two bodies moved against one another, almost in time with the sensual instrumental version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas that poured from the overhead speakers. The scent of sex filled the air. At the other end of the bar, a woman giggled as she and the man she was with made a speedy exit out the patio door.
Despite the festive holiday lights strung about the room and the elegant fir tree in the corner, he didn’t feel like celebrating. Not when she was out there somewhere doing who knew what with… someone else.
He rolled his shoulders and leaned against the bar again.
The air carried a delightful scent past his nose. Evergreen and… and vanilla. Suddenly he was back on the battlefield. Or deep in the forest, as it were. The sword in his hand was heavy, the day, long. A wave of vampires emerged from the thicket. Grayson dove behind a tree as a volley of arrows breezed through the air.
“What’s eatin’ you?” Richard asked, slapping Grayson on the shoulder, jerking him from the memory.
“Nothin’.” Everything.
His longtime sparring buddy settled on the barstool next to Grayson. “I thought you’d already be fucking a beautiful woman. Isn’t that why we came here?”
That was the plan. “Having a drink first.”
Richard’s head jerked back a notch. “How many have you had?”
Grayson pursed his lips and counted. “This is number four.” Grayson made eye contact with the bartender again before tipping back the glass.
“You tryin’ to drink a whole bottle by yourself? Shitfaced is no way to attract a woman.”
“Barely feelin’ a buzz, buddy.” With his metabolism it would take a full bottle of Scotch to get him good and drunk. And he’d have to drink it quickly.
“Jack and Coke, please,” Richard requested, when the bartender made his way over.
“What about you?” Grayson asked, turning toward his friend.
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Grayson snorted. Richard was about the farthest thing from a gentleman that he could imagine. In all the years they’d known each other, Richard had never been picky about his sexual partners. Man, woman, group… it didn’t seem to matter. And while he was polite enough in mixed company, Grayson had heard more than his share of Richard’s conquest stories.
Yet oddly enough, when he wasn’t crawling through a jungle and assassinating dictators, Richard very much enjoyed the finer things in life. Expensive cars, fine watches, pedicures. Grayson shivered at the thought.
“Already bagged the masseuse,” Richard whispered. “Sweetest cunt I’ve tasted in a long,” he stretched out the word, “time.”
That didn’t surprise Grayson in the least. Richard enjoyed massages almost as much as he enjoyed sex.
“See anyone interesting?” Richard asked.
“Maybe.” A beautiful someone with intense blue eyes.
“Well, have fun.” Richard slapped him on the back. “I see something that tickles my fancy.”
Grayson shifted atop the barstool and watched his longtime friend stalk to the patio. A glimpse of red silk against ebony skin caught his attention and he bolted to his feet. An invisible force pulled him to the door, drink forgotten.
The vampiress sat at a round patio table, alone except for a single goblet. Her long black hair shielded her face from his view, but he knew her profile by heart. Had memorized it that day in the woods. Her heart-shaped mouth haunted his dreams.
Richard approached her table, and Grayson growled low in his throat. A few of the other guests glanced his way. Grayson knew the rules of Mystic Isle. No fighting. No weapons. But he also knew that if Richard wanted her, Grayson would fight him to the death.
Whoa. As quickly as the thought entered his mind he tipped his head back and glanced up at the stars. What the hell was wrong with him? Richard was his best friend. A little abrasive sometimes and ultimately a man-whore… but they’d been through too much to end their friendship over a woman.
Nevertheless, Grayson held his breath as Richard stopped in front of the blue-eyed beauty. He exhaled when she tipped her head back to look up at his friend. For a moment, everything stopped. Time. The ocean. His very heartbeat.
Richard said something, but Grayson couldn’t hear over the music and waves lapping the shore. There was a brief shake of her head. Richard leaned in closer. She cocked her head to the right and fingered the stem of her wine glass. Grayson’s gut tightened, wishing those fingers were running over his skin. Caressing his cock in the same absentminded fashion, bringing him to life before she finished him off.
Richard frowned and back
ed up a step. It wasn’t very often that his friend struck out. But perhaps the vampire could smell the masseuse on him. Or perhaps she could smell all his past lovers. Whatever the reason, she’d shot him down flat. Richard offered her his charming “you’ll-be-mine” smile and then strode away.
The knot in Grayson’s stomach eased ever so slightly. His mystery woman finished off the glass of wine and the waiter immediately brought another. He’d always thought of her that way, the one woman who’d eluded him all those years ago. She was a puzzle and he’d always wondered what made her tick.
What her voice sounded like.
Had she made it out of the war? And if so, what was she doing with her life?
Was she married? Did she have children? Did she want children?
Did she have parents still? Brothers and sisters?
He settled at a table just inside the door, his chair facing her. He watched her finish off the second glass of wine and then a third. Her gaze never strayed from the moonlit ocean.
If she knew he was watching her, she gave no indication. Never glanced over her shoulder at him. But Grayson could feel the electricity arcing between them. An invisible but tangible connection that made him cross his arms over his chest so he wouldn’t stride over there and toss her over his shoulder. No matter how much the idea suited, he needed to go slow -- on a private beach where he could rip her clothes from her body and make her his.
Chapter Three
Coco’s fangs lengthened in annoyance. The hulking wolf reeked of another woman and yet here he stood, hitting on her.
From beneath her lashes, she gave him her best fuck-off look. Brows drawn together just so, her lips in the perfect combination of frown and thin line with just the tips of her pearly whites showing. Yes, it was a look she’d perfected over the years and it said far more than words ever could.
