The Vampire's Temptation

by Cecelia Mecca

  His hands did not dip back down to touch her.

  She thought maybe he’d gone for more oil, but he didn’t move.

  “Why not?” she asked, thinking it more appropriate than Why did you stop touching me? or Will you please put your damn hands back where they belong?

  “You are not in danger.”

  That was simply not true. Even if Lawrence wasn’t a threat to her, Kenton certainly was—she was in very real danger of begging him to touch her.

  And she wasn’t the type to beg.

  Finally, he placed his hand on her back. But this was no massage.

  “Lawrence?” she managed to get out.

  Three fingers lowered to the top of her spine, warm and welcome, and trailed a path downward, stopping just above the blanket that fell across her waist.

  “A misunderstanding,” he drawled.

  She couldn’t concentrate.

  “He thought I was here to harm you, and as you know, I thought the same. But you are no danger to our kind, and therefore, we are no danger to you.”

  Did he say “our kind?” What the hell was that supposed to mean? Somehow she knew from the start there was something different about him and Lawrence. But what exactly? And Lord, if she could find the will to care at the moment. Kenton’s feather-light touch robbed her of all coherent thought.

  Skating back toward her shoulders, his fingers teased with the skill of one who had done this many, many times before.

  Given his looks, and his confident swagger, she didn’t doubt it.

  “In fact,” he said, running his hand deliciously close to the swell of her breast, “I plan to prove as much to you.”

  She mourned the loss of his touch immediately when he pulled away.

  “I will pick you up at seven.”

  What the—

  She spun around, but sure enough, Kenton was gone.

  Chapter 11

  “For a girl who spent the morning at the spa, you don’t look very relaxed.”

  Alessandra and Toni were sitting at their favorite table at Le Trousseau. The owner fancied himself somewhat of a New Orleans connoisseur. It was on his suggestion that the two had first visited the Crescent City, and for that Alessandra would be forever thankful. Like New Orleans, Stone Haven had expanded its original settlements—though Main Street was no French Quarter—around the curved shape of the river, then ran alongside it. The similarities pretty much ended there, however. In Stone Haven, there was no ability to get lost in a crowd. Every crowd was a group of friends, acquaintances, and friends of friends. There was no better example of that than their current surroundings. Alessandra knew nearly every person seated around them at lunch. She’d listened in on the conversations around her while waiting for Toni to arrive, thanks in part to her new keen sense of hearing, and discovered the mysterious Lawrence Derrickson was the new bartender at Amendment 18.

  Why would a man who’d purchased the Addy Hutton Mansion need a bartending job? Good question. But one that paled in comparison to the litany of questions she planned to ask Kenton that night.

  “You have no idea,” she muttered.

  “Nice day. At least it stopped raining so we could sit outside.”

  Had it rained earlier? Alessandra was so caught up in thought she hadn’t even noticed the wet patches of grass dotting the sidewalk every so often.

  The waitress unceremoniously plopped down two waters before moving on to the next table.

  “You put in our orders?” Toni asked.

  She nodded.

  Not only was the food here delicious, but Le Trousseau had the distinction of being just a block away from Curiosities. If business was slow enough, Toni was sometimes able to slip away to meet Alessandra for lunch in the summer, but she hated to be away for too long. As was their custom, Alessandra arrived early and placed their orders.

  “So . . . what happened?”

  “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

  “Try me.”

  “Somehow Kenton managed to dissuade my masseur from actually performing his duties.”

  Toni scrunched her nose. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning he snuck into Sunset Spa—”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Right? I should have run for the hills—”

  “Let me guess. You stayed put.”

  She didn’t seem very surprised. Then again, Toni was her soul sister. They kept nothing from each other, and this would be no exception.

  “Kind of.”

  She took a deep breath and spilled it all. To her credit, Toni merely sipped her water as if Alessandra were recounting a day in the classroom. She did, however, look more than a little relieved Lawrence was likely not a psychopath.

  “I literally don’t know what to say.”

  “That,” Alessandra answered, “makes two of us.”

  “Oh, Birdie wanted me to tell you, she made some headway in her research.”

  “Good. Because so far my searches for ‘Cheld’ have produced squat, other than as an ancient Scots word for ‘child.’ I’ve even considered heading to the university library.”

  “What’s that?” Toni teased. When Alessandra had first started working on her PhD, Toni had once accompanied her to the stacks where untransferred microfiche was stored. In recent years, the stacks had been used less and less, but sometimes good old-fashioned sleuthing had to be done, well, the good old-fashioned way.

  “She didn’t say much else, just to let you know she’s working on it.”

  Alessandra shrugged. “I’m not overly hopeful we’ll find anything. The internet has failed me this time.”

  They stopped talking when their food came.

  She snuck a fry from her dish even before Toni’s sandwich was served.

  And blurted out the one thing she’d been hesitant to reveal.

  “And I may have a date with him again tonight.”

  Giving the remainder of her fries her complete attention, Alessandra refused to look at her friend.

  “Excuse me?”

  Sighing, she finally lifted her gaze. Toni’s raised eyebrows were in danger of freezing there. Being skeptical was her specialty.

  “That seems like such a good idea. Go out with a guy who may, or may not, want to kill you—”

  “We’ve been over this. If he wanted to hurt me, he’s had plenty of opportunity. Besides, something tells me he is being truthful about his intentions . . .” She paused for dramatic effect. “And Lawrence too.”

  Ha! There it was. Toni pretended to take a bite of her tuna croissant as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  Alessandra knew better. She’d seen the look of relief cross Toni’s face earlier, after she got to the part of the story where Kenton had assured her Lawrence wasn’t a threat.

  “I say avoid them both,” Toni said, her tone hard. “Pretend neither exists and go back to doing whatever you teachers do in the summer while the rest of us are working. You know, spa days, lounging around coffee shops—”

  “Trying to figure out why I can smell mint chocolate chip ice cream a block away, why these french fries taste like a slice of heaven, and why I can no sooner avoid Kenton than I can give up red wine for the rest of my life?”

  That shut her up.

  Toni ignored her as she ate, but the little crease between her eyebrows told Alessandra she was thinking, hard.

  “Besides, I have a feeling the answers I need aren’t in a library. I doubt Birdie can find them either.”

  “I don’t know. She has some pretty connected friends.”

  Alessandra didn’t dare ask what they were connected to.

  “Well, you have to admit, as far as relationships go, this one isn’t even the most messed up one I’ve had.”

  Alessandra had crap luck with men, and Toni knew it. Her friend believed the fact that her father had left the family when she was so young, with no explanation, was the reason for her hang-ups. She’d long contended Alessandra picked the safest, most boring guys in
the world in order to be deliberately dulled after a month of dating.

  “Relationship?” Toni prodded.

  “I mean, not that this . . . whatever . . . is a relationship. Or will ever be one. Despite all of my questions, Kenton gives me very few answers. And I don’t even know if he’s staying—”

  “He bought a house here, didn’t he?”

  “True.” She snagged another fry. They really were better than normal today.

  A strange sensation washed over Alessandra, encouraging her to look up and over Toni’s shoulder.

  “What is it?”

  She leaned over in her seat to get a better view of the sidewalk. So far, she couldn’t see anything out of place. But Alessandra was beginning to recognize this feeling. It was how she felt whenever Kenton or Lawrence came near. Although neither man frightened her, it struck her that the feeling was rather like the sensation you get just before walking into a haunted house. There was nothing scary to see yet. But just around the corner . . .

  “There.”

  She said it more to herself, but Toni turned in her seat anyway.

  “What is it? I don’t see anything.”

  Though she was still some distance away, Alessandra knew the blonde woman in the distance, a tourist judging by the look of her, was her target.

  Target? Now why had that word popped into her head?

  The woman was a complete stranger, but Alessandra couldn’t stop staring.

  Not because the woman was beautiful, though she certainly was that.

  Not because the woman was looking at her with something like recognition.

  No, the reason Alessandra couldn’t stop staring was because she was one hundred percent positive that this woman was related to Lawrence. Moreover, the stranger was making her way directly to their table. Despite that haunted-house feeling, Alessandra could sense she was not a threat.

  So much for the idea that this sixth sense thing was all in her head, a manifestation of Kenton and Lawrence’s fantastical musings about her ancestry and some magical bloodline.

  It was true. Their claims weren’t some tall tale.

  The question was, what did this woman want from her?

  “Do not take another step.”

  He didn’t see, or feel, Lawrence’s presence yet. But if Laria had come to town, no doubt her brother would be close at hand.

  “Hello, Kenton,” Laria said without turning toward him.

  Kenton leaned against the brick wall of the alley spilling onto Main Street, hopefully keeping out of sight of Alessandra. “I may not be powerful enough to kill you, but I can still make you suffer if you get any closer to her.”

  Sighing audibly, Laria turned to face him rather than continuing on her path toward the restaurant. She’d never been one to take orders, so the move surprised him.

  “It’s been how many years since we’ve crossed paths, and this is how you greet me?” she asked, as if annoyed by a small child’s antics.

  She watched him from eyes with the same vivid green as her brother’s. Despite the hate he bore for her and her family, Kenton could not deny she was quite beautiful.

  While each of the Kenton brothers sported the same jet-black hair, Laria and her brothers shared a shade of brown that was kissed by the sun.

  “Your brother and I have made an agreement. She is off-limits.”

  Laria cocked her head to the side. “So Lawrence tells me.”

  “And yet . . . here you are.”

  He turned from her, walking deeper into the alleyway. Each side alley branching off Main Street led to more shops and restaurants. Appropriately enough, this one led to Amendment 18, the speakeasy where Lawrence had apparently found employment. Since its customers would not arrive for hours, it was as private a place as any.

  “I just wanted to take a peek at the woman who’s causing so much fuss.”

  “Your brother is a liar,” he said, ignoring her words. “He assured me you would be nowhere near Stone Haven.”

  “Your little truce with my brother is safe,” she said dismissively, waving a hand through the air as if swatting a fly.

  His jaw clenched.

  “Lawrence gave his word, and therefore you have mine.”

  “Then perhaps you have somewhere else to be.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You see, Kenton,” she said, emphasizing his name as if it were an epithet, “my brother is under the illusion that you won’t kill Alessandra. But I know better. When the truce is up, and you attempt to destroy the lovely Alessandra Fiore and her family, I will be here to ensure that does not happen.”

  God save me from Clan Karyn.

  “I’m not planning to kill her, Laria.”

  That got her attention.

  “You’re not?”

  A valid question. He’d spent hours considering his mission, and when it came down to it, Lawrence was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He couldn’t bring himself to kill Alessandra. If he hadn’t done it when they were alone in his house, in a place where Lawrence could not reach her, he wasn’t going to do it.

  He barely understood his own motivations, so he certainly didn’t wish to explain himself to Laria Derrickson.

  “No. I’m not.”

  Explaining his actions, when he could hardly understand them himself, was not on his list of things to do today.

  “Stay away from her,” he said, turning away.

  “Oh no, you don’t.”

  A strong hand gripped his arm, spinning him back around.

  “This is hardly the place for a public spat, Laria.”

  They’d already brought attention to themselves by purchasing the town’s biggest mansions, neither of which had been for sale. But a brawl in the street was to be avoided at all costs. It risked revealing them for what they were—or, at the very least, for what they weren’t. It was the only unwritten rule among their kind, and any vampires who failed to follow it eventually ended up paying with their lives. Younger vampires were sometimes schooled by their elders, though his family and Lawrence’s were the oldest and most powerful. They could only be controlled by the Cheld.

  In this case, Alessandra and any family she had left.

  “That’s it? For the first time since the fourteenth century you’re allowing a Cheld to walk away unscathed, and I’m supposed to just believe it’s out of the kindness of your heart? One you haven’t had since, well, never.”

  “He’s in love with her.”

  Just what he needed. Another Derrickson.

  Rather than refute Lawrence’s claim, Kenton turned on him and growled, “We had a deal.”

  “And Laria came to town of her own accord. I did not ask her to be here.”

  Kenton looked back and forth between the two. “I don’t like it.”

  With his own family far away, he felt outnumbered. And on edge. The second more concerning than the first.

  “I don’t give a shit what you—”

  “Laria,” her brother said. “I told you there was no need to worry.”

  Fire shot from her eyes, but thankfully, it was directed at Lawrence this time.

  “Not worry? We are talking about Kenton Morley. The man who hates the Cheld more than anyone—”

  “Except for my brother,” Kenton said with a grin, enjoying his ability to rile Laria.

  “Look at him,” Laria spat. “Does that look like a man who will honor his word?”

  “‘Lawrence gave his word, and therefore you have mine,’” he said, repeating what she’d said to him not a minute before. “What will it be? Are we to trust in a gentleman's agreement . . . or not?”

  Laria’s eyes narrowed. “I am no gentleman.”

  “No. You certainly are not.”

  “But I suppose you have never betrayed your word,” she snapped. “You have always been upfront about being the worst kind of bastard.”

  “Why, thank you,” he mocked.

  “Even so, you have always made your intentions abunda
ntly clear,” she said, her tone turning more fiery and intense with each word, “to eradicate each and every one of our brother’s lineage. Which is why I don’t believe anything, not even love—”

  “I am not in love with her,” he said to no one as neither of them was listening.

  “—will stop him.”

  Laria looked at him with such loathing that, for a flash of an instant, Kenton wished it could have been different between them. As with the brother, he’d always held a measure of respect for Laria despite his hate for her family. Honorable, though to a different cause, he had no quarrel with her other than their very different opinion on how to keep their families safe.

  “Believe what you will. I really don’t care, my lady.”

  He used the old title to remind her of their common origins. Of the courtly values with which they’d both been raised. He had no desire to be followed each and every moment by this woman. Unlike Lawrence, she would not be subtle.

  “But my word does mean something, my lady, and listen well.” He could not take these words back. But neither did he wish to. “I will not kill Alessandra Fiore, either now or after the temporary truce is over. You’ve spent seven hundred years attempting to convince me not all Cheld are dangerous. It seems you’ll have a chance to prove it. All I ask is that you not tell her the full truth of what we are. Yet.”

  God help him. His brothers would kill him for this, and Kenton would deserve it. Part of him felt he’d lost his way, but it didn’t matter. He was in the thick of this situation, like it or not, and he’d follow through on his words.

  “We shall see,” Laria said finally. “But know this, you pompous ass. If you attempt to harm her, I will be there to stop you. You will not prevail. Not this time.”

  He didn’t doubt it.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Kenton said. “I have an assignation to prepare for.”

  Laria’s expression—all ladylike affront—made him smile, and he was still smiling two blocks later as he arrived home. He needed a drink and a shower, in that order.

  An interesting night lay ahead.

  Chapter 12