by Lisa Childs
Her mouth had taken the edge off his urgency, so that he could take his time now, teasing her to the brink of release only to pull out again. Her muscles clutched at him, pulling him deeper. And she knocked his hands aside to cup her breasts and roll her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers. Julian sat up and flicked his tongue across the tips she teased herself. Then he reached between them, sliding his thumb across the most sensitive part of her.
And she came, screaming his name—pouring her passion over him. He dug his fingers into her butt, lifting her up and down, until another orgasm slammed through him—this more violently than the last. “It’s a good thing we can’t die,” he murmured between desperate pants for breath, “or you’d kill me for sure.”
She collapsed against his chest, pressing her lips to where his heart pounded hard in rhythm with hers. “I will never hurt you,” she promised him.
He smoothed his hands over the perspiration-slick skin of her bare back and asked, “So are you ready to make an honest man of me now?”
Her lips curved against his skin, into a smile. “Honest man?”
“When are you going to marry me?” he asked, urgency rushing through him despite being completely sexually satiated. He couldn’t wait for her to become his bride.
“Now too soon?”
“Now is perfect—as perfect as you are.” As perfect as their life together promised to be.
Chapter 9
S tars glittered in the night sky as brightly as the lights wound round the boughs of the pine trees lining the park path. Big snowflakes drifted softly out of the darkness, sparkling as they hit the lights and the path. The flakes dropped onto Sienna’s face and slid down her cheeks like the tears she fought from falling.
She would not cry. Not when everything was so perfect…and Julian awaited her, standing next to an Underground minister beneath the tallest pine in the park. Clutching tight to Orson Vossimer’s arm, Sienna started down the aisle toward her groom. But the elder Vossimer’s steps slowed, and he turned to her.
Had he changed his mind? Was she not good enough to be a Vossimer bride?
“No,” he answered aloud her unspoken thoughts. “You’re perfect. The perfect bride for my grandson—the perfect princess for the Vossimer prince.”
“Because he turned me?” She had to know.
The older man shook his head. “Because you love him as he’s always deserved to be loved—completely and unselfishly.”
“The same way he loves me.”
“I see that now,” Orson admitted. “I’m sorry…”
“For trying to kill me?”
The older man’s handsome face, so eerily similar to Julian’s, lifted in the wicked grin his grandson had evidently inherited from him. “Honey, if I’d actually tried, you would be dead. Not undead.” He covered her hand with his and squeezed. “I may not be the nicest man, but I’m not a killer.”
“But you threatened Julian,” she reminded him, unwilling to let the man rewrite history. “You told him—”
“I warned him. I suspected how he felt about you. Ever since he’d pulled you from that crash, he’d had an attachment to you. I wanted to test that attachment.”
“So it’s not a rule that no human can learn of the Underground?”
He sighed. “It’s a rule that fortunately hasn’t had to be enforced too often.”
Just with her parents. She winced, reliving the accident—reliving her loss. But she wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. Or of loving with her whole heart—the way she loved Julian.
“You wanted him to turn me,” she realized. “You wanted us to be together?”
“I wanted my grandson to be happy,” he said as he turned toward where Julian waited beneath the lit pine tree. “You make him happy.”
“And he makes me happy.”
The old man nodded, then added with satisfaction, “And your gift would have been wasted on a human.”
“Gift?”
“Telepathy, like your grandmother had,” he said and admitted, “and I have.”
“I don’t have telepathy.”
“But you know what Julian’s thinking.”
Right now she knew he was getting impatient, waiting for his grandfather to bring him his bride. Her lips curved into a reassuring smile she hoped he could see. Or at least feel. “Only Julian,” she said. “We have a connection.”
“Because of your gift,” Orson said.
She shook her head. “Because of our love.”
“Love…” Orson sighed. “I guess I might actually have to try it for myself.”
They started forward on the path, which wound through chairs that had been set up in the park. Members of the Underground, friends of Julian’s who had already accepted Sienna, occupied the chairs. One of those was Ingrid.
“Just be careful,” she advised the Vossimer king. “Not all love stories end like Julian’s and mine.”
Happily ever after. She hadn’t thought it existed—despite seeing her grandparents’ love for each other. And she never would have believed a man such as Julian existed.
“I’m real,” he assured her as he took her hand from his grandfather’s arm. “And our love is real.”
“And eternal.”
“You two are skipping ahead on the vows,” the Underground minister teased.
“I guess we didn’t need you after all,” Julian shot back with a wink.
We didn’t, Sienna silently agreed. They’d already forever joined their souls.
Julian winked at her, as if he’d read her mind, which he no doubt had. The two of them were one; they didn’t need to repeat the minister’s vows to seal their union. But they exchanged their promises and rings, a plain gold band for Julian and Nana’s diamond for Sienna, so that they could celebrate their love with their friends and family, those dead and those undead.
Breaking away from the passionate kiss that punctuated their wedding ceremony, Sienna smiled and laughed.
“Happy?” Julian asked, his handsome face beaming with his own joy.
“Yes.” And so was Nana. Despite her grandmother being dead, Sienna felt her approval shining down upon her as clearly as the stars and the twinkling Christmas lights.
Reading her thoughts again, Julian nodded. “Even Orson’s happy for us.”
“He loves you,” she said and repeated when she felt her new husband’s doubts. “He loves you. He just doesn’t know how to express it.”
“He doesn’t know how to feel it,” Julian scoffed.
“He wants to try,” she defended her new relative.
Julian gestured toward where his grandfather stood near the dark-haired vampiress. “I hope he’s not going to try with her.”
“I don’t think so.” Orson was too clever to waste his time with someone who couldn’t return his feelings. She sighed and admitted, “I feel sorry for Ingrid.”
“Why? If she’d had her way, you’d be dead now,” Julian reminded her.
Sienna shook her head. “No, if she had her way, she’d be with the man she loves.” A twinge of guilt tempered her happiness. “I’m so lucky that I am…”
“We’re so lucky,” he said, “to have each other.”
Music began to play, softly, from a string quartet set up near the Christmas tree. Julian took her hand in his as he wrapped his other arm around her waist and drew her against his body. Then he began to move in time to each sweet chord.
“We are lucky,” she agreed.
“And brave,” he said.
They had been brave to open up their damaged hearts to love. “Yes,” she agreed.
“You were brave to trust me to turn you,” he clarified his compliment, “and not kill you.”
“Trust had nothing to do with it,” she said. “It was love…”
With them, it would always be love.
For all eternity.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4484-3
HOLIDAY WITH A VAMPIRE III
Copyright © 2009 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
NOTHING SAYS CHRISTMAS LIKE A VAMPIRE
Copyright © 2009 by Lisa Childs-Theeuwes
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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