Must Love Vampires (9 page)

“But you don’t age, do you? You don’t get sick and die like we mere mortals.”

“No, but mortals also don’t burst into flame when direct sunlight hits them. You can move about the world completely undeterred. Get on a plane in L.A. at noon one day and step off in Australia at noon the next. Visit Disney World every year and take a spin in the teacups with the two-pointthree tots in tow.”

“But
you’re
never going to die. At least not unless you forget to use your SPF 3000 or trip into a wooden stake. You’re never going to catch cancer and make your wife a widow almost before she was a bride.”

Ah. “What was his name?” Sebastian asked quietly.

The room filled with eerie, absolute silence for the space of a single heartbeat—or in Chuck’s case, a dozen, since he could hear her heart racing a mile a minute beneath her breast. Her mouth wobbled and her eyes turned glossy, tears pooling along her lower lashes.

“Matthew,” she said, the single name sounding ripped from her lips with soul-deep emotion.

“What happened?”

Expression bleak, she murmured simply, “He died.” Sebastian didn’t respond. He knew there was more to the story, and suspected she wanted to share, but wasn’t about to press. He might be a vampire—impervious to human aches and ills, according to her—but he knew about the pain of loss. Probably more than she could ever imagine. If she wanted to talk about it, she would. And if not, they would move on to another, less personal subject.

A moment later, she began to speak again, her voice a soft quaver. “We were high school sweethearts. Grew up together, did the whole hand-holding, note-passing, prom night loss of virginity deal. And then we got married. Too young, really, but we were in love.”

Lifting her head a fraction, she gave a ghost of a smile. “Head over heels, stupid in love. And we paid for it. Neither of us attended college. We just got mediocre, minimum wage jobs to put food on the table. But we were happy.”

The smile that had begun to build on her face fell. “And then Matthew got sick. We didn’t know what was wrong at first, but then he was diagnosed with cancer, and a year later, he was gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sebastian could hear the absolute devastation in her words, feel the grief radiating from her in waves. And yet here she was, sitting beside him, strong and whole and highly inquisitive.

She’d tracked him down, hadn’t she? Become suspicious of his lifestyle and figured out what he was when no one else seemed to give it a second thought.

He wondered if she realized exactly why proving the existence of immortality had become such a driving force in her life. But then, a lot of vampires
became
vampires for much the same reason—personal loss and a desperation to do something about the unbearable hurt it brought with it.

“So you’re looking for a man who can’t get sick and isn’t going to die on you,” he ventured. Perhaps not the wisest or most empathetic comment he could have made, but she seemed like the type who appreciated getting right to the point.

Her eyes went wide. “No. I—” She blinked, her mouth falling open for a second before she snapped it shut. With a sigh, she said, “I never really thought of it that way, but maybe I am. It would be nice not to have to be
afraid
anymore.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of getting involved. Afraid of meeting someone, falling madly in love, and then having my heart ripped out when I lose him.”

“Who’s to say you’d lose him?”

“Who’s to say I wouldn’t?” she countered.

“Just because one man died on you doesn’t mean another would,” he offered in a low, cautious tone.

“And it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I’m just not sure I’m willing to take the chance.”

A niggle of curiosity played at the back of his mind. “How long ago did Matthew pass away?”

“Eight years.”

“Is that how long it’s been since you’ve been with someone? Dated, been involved with . . . been intimate with?”

He wasn’t sure he could believe that. She was a beautiful, vibrant woman. He would think that, even if she weren’t sitting here with glitter still caking her eyelashes, and he hadn’t seen her high-kicking across Lust’s stage just hours ago.

There was no way she could go nearly ten years without male attention. He pictured a bevy of horny, salivating men lining up at her door every night of the week.

Her gaze skittered away, a delightful blush of color staining her cheeks as she gave a baleful nod.

“Seriously?” he asked, more than a little astonished. “It’s been that long?”

The color on her cheeks brightened, but she didn’t hang her head. Instead, her chin went up a notch.

“Yes, okay? It’s been a really long time.” And then under her breath, she grumbled, “Which probably explains the fantasies I’ve been having lately.”

He lifted a brow, his temperature kicking up a notch with piqued interest. “What kind of fantasies?” he asked in a surprisingly even tone given that his throat felt as though it was stuffed with feathers from the headdress of her costume, which was lying on the floor near her feet.

Her mouth twisted and she gave him a look he took to mean,
What kind do you think?

“The usual kind,” she said aloud. “And, oddly, they all seem to be about you.”

Flush

Okay, Chuck thought, she probably shouldn’t have said that. There were a lot of things she probably shouldn’t have said since waking up in Sebastian’s bed.

What the heck was wrong with her? She’d had this guy in her sights for months now, but with a strict “observe and report” policy. Getting into his apartment was one thing; sitting on his sofa, telling him he was the star of her very own X-rated Chippendales daydreams was something else altogether.

And how the heck had that happened, anyway? The man was hot, no doubt about it. No red-blooded American woman could look at him and
not
have all of her girlie parts throb with lustful longing.

But while she’d
admired
his dark good looks—and knowing he was eminently bankable didn’t hurt, either—she hadn’t pictured him naked, stripping him bare with her teeth, or imagined him lying on top of her, filling her, bringing her to orgasm again and again and again.

Until tonight.

The images filled her head like snapshots, or a slide show, big and bold and larger than life. And it surprised her to realize how much she wanted that. All of it.

Which maybe wasn’t so surprising, given her eight year dry spell. But in that eight years, she hadn’t even been attracted to anyone of the opposite sex. Never.

It was as though she’d gone through the last decade with blinders on, not seeing men as men, but simply genderless human beings.

Now suddenly, she saw a man. A tall, dark, handsome man. A sexy, amazing man who oozed masculinity and sexuality and mystery and danger.

He was a vampire, for God’s sake. Who could be attracted to a vampire?

Well, okay, Mina for one. Ninety percent of the female population, for the other—at least if the depiction of the bloodsucking undead in films and literature was anything to go by.

Twilight
,
Dracula
,
Moonlight
,
The Black Dagger Brotherhood
. . . Her research had forced her—oh, yeah, big sacrifice; she’d only balked for about the first three pages of J.R. Ward’s
Dark Lover
—to read and watch
everything
she could find that was even remotely related to vampires. Movies, television series, classics, romance novels . . . Her living room now looked like the underground lair of some sad, depressed, black-clad Goth teenager.

So maybe she wasn’t crazy. Maybe her hormones, which had been lying dormant (not dead, apparently—thank goodness) all this time, had simply picked this moment to wake up and start doing the Macarena.

She wasn’t even sure she should try to tame them. It had been so long since her sexuality had made itself known, she almost felt as though she should revel in its sudden awakening. Throw them a little party, a la Mardi Gras or Hormones Gone Wild.

She gave Sebastian another once-over, liking more than ever what she saw. He really was a tall drink of holy water.

Provided he was even interested in getting horizontal with her—or vertical, or at a ninety-degree angle; she certainly wasn’t going to be picky—why shouldn’t she throw caution to the wind and go for it?

Sure, he was a vampire, but everyone had their quirks. Matthew had been Lutheran. For a few years back in the late nineties, she’d been a vegetarian.

And he’d already informed her in no uncertain terms that he was going to Etch-a-Sketch her memory when they were finished so she’d have zero recollection of their evening together. Which meant she would have no regrets. She could hang by her ankles from the ceiling or dance naked on one of the blackjack tables downstairs, and she’d never know the difference.

Of course, she was the good twin. Or maybe more accurately, the less uninhibited twin. While Chloe had been on the cheerleading team in high school, Chuck had kept busy with the school newspaper. While Chloe had spent every weekend out with friends—and boyfriends—Chuck had stayed home to read.

And while Chloe went through boys—and later men—like Skittles, Chuck’s idea of a hot date was a night at the library with
Jane Eyre
or
Wuthering Heights
. It had taken her forever to realize Matthew was interested in her in
that way
, and once she had, that was it; he’d been her one and only boyfriend, her one and only lover, her one and only husband.

So she didn’t exactly have a lot of experience in the “hot sex” department. Not that she was a bowl of Kibble and Bits. She owned a mirror and knew she had it going on, as far as her looks were concerned. Junk food addiction notwithstanding, she had nice boobs, a nice butt, and fit into Chloe’s “Flames of Hell” costume without too much overflow.

Face-wise . . . well, Chloe was gorgeous, and since they were identical twins . . . Just because she didn’t spend as much time primping and reapplying her lipstick didn’t mean she was Bride of Frankenstein material.

So Sebastian shouldn’t be too turned off, right?

But was he turned on? Even a little bit?

Lifting her wineglass to her lips, she used it to camouflage the direction of her gaze. She hoped.

How did one tell if a man was turned on? she wondered. Other than the obvious, of course. That’s what she was looking for, but damn the muted lighting and the folds of his black slacks. She couldn’t see anything of importance.

“Looking for something?”

Sebastian’s low voice caused her to jump guiltily. The wine sloshed, and she jerked her head—and her gaze—back up to his face.

Busted
, she thought, like a first-class fool, noting the quirk of his lips and knowing gleam in his eyes. And not for the first time tonight, either. Her entire face flushed hot with humiliation.

How did Chloe do this all the time, with guy after guy, without bursting into flames of embarrassment?

And the sex! Flirting and trying to gauge a man’s interest was hard enough; Chuck could barely imagine stripping naked and having actual sex with a bunch of them, too. Well, not a bunch as in “all at once,” just consecutively over a span of time. Her sister might be outgoing, but she wasn’t a slut.

With a mental head slap, she realized that somewhere during the last ten years, she’d apparently turned into a Puritan.

But she really wasn’t! Or at least, she never had been before.

She used to like sex just as much as the next person. And though she and Matthew hadn’t made a habit of doing anything in bed that would make the fine citizens of Las Vegas raise a brow—it was
Vegas
, after all; people could buy used panties out of vending machines, if they wanted (
blurg
)—they’d been adventurous in their own way.

“No,” she answered quickly.

A total lie, and she was sure he could tell by the way her voice squeaked when she said it.
Oh, no, I wasn’t looking for anything. My eyes weren’t glued to your crotch like a crocodile scoping out the weakest zebra at the watering hole.

“Really?” He raised a brow like the upper curve of a question mark.

It was a damn sexy eyebrow . . . as was its mate and the rest of his handsome, chiseled face. But she was sort of beginning to hate that expression. The one that told her his curiosity was piqued, or he wanted her to elaborate on something she was trying to keep to herself.

“Because it looked as though you were staring at my—”

“No!”
she screeched, cutting him off before he could finish
that
thought. Shaking her head like a rag doll, she said, “No, definitely not. I was not staring at your . . . anything.”

“Funny,” he murmured in a low voice, “I could have sworn you were.”

If she blushed any more in this man’s presence, she swore she was going to burst into flames brighter and hotter than the ones on the outfit she’d been wearing earlier.

Come on, Chuck,
she told herself, mentally straightening her shoulders and sliding her spine back into place.
Pull yourself together and act like the strong, independent woman you pride yourself on being.

“What do you care if I was?” she countered with a cocky eyebrow lift of her own. Ha! Let him get a taste of his own medicine.

“Oh, I would care,” he replied. “In fact, I would be quite intrigued.”

That caught her off guard. She blinked a moment, trying to find her thoughts and her voice. “Why?” she finally worked up the saliva to ask.

“Because you’re not the only one having fantasies.” Chuck’s heart thumped as though someone had punched her in the chest. So hard, it stole her breath.

But it also quickened her pulse. Heated her blood. Made juices flow to areas that had been as dry as the Mojave Desert for longer than she could remember.

“What kind of fantasies?” she managed in a wisp of sound.

“The usual kind,” he said, tossing her earlier words back at her.

In one smooth, almost practiced move, he set his glass aside and slid toward her on the sofa. Crowding her, cornering her, pinning her between the overstuffed cushions at her back and his wide, silk-covered chest.