The Vampire’s Mail Order Bride (8 page)

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just…not my thing.”

“I don’t know why. Except for Icky Vicky, the townspeople seem to love you.” She took another bite of the brownie, hoping he’d share something to dispel some of the mystery surrounding him.

“I’m just more of a private person.”

Hello, open door. “Is that why your grandmother thinks you need help finding a woman?”

“It isn’t so much that she thinks I need help finding a woman as it is she thinks I need help learning to commit.”

“And an arranged match was going to do that how?”

He growled softly in frustration. “She believes if I meet the perfect woman, I won’t find a reason to break things off.”

“Oh, I get it. You’re a love ’em and leave ’em type.”

“No,” he said sharply. “
That
is Julian. I have been in plenty of meaningful, long-term relationships—”

“You just can’t put a ring on it.”

He frowned. “Something like that.” He sat back, twisting slightly so he could cross one long leg over the other. He planted his hand on his ankle and studied her. “Why did
you
need a matchmaker?”

“I…”
Think, Delaney. You’re not you, you’re Annabelle.
“I just got out of a relationship.”

“Not rich or strong enough?” He smiled.

“Not faithful enough.” She rolled the edge of her paper napkin under her fingertips. “Money and physical attributes I can take or leave. After all, they’re both attributes that can come and go depending on the circumstances. But I will not abide a cheating man.”

“Is that why your last relationship didn’t work?”

She nodded, thoughts of Russell ruining the taste in her mouth. “He forgot his phone at my place.” She held her hands up. “I didn’t snoop on purpose. It chimed, I looked and the rest is history. He knew when he came to pick it up he’d been found out.” She forced herself to smile. She was sitting across from an exceptionally handsome man, eating the most amazing brownie she’d ever had. Now was not the time to mope about Russell. “How about you? Why’d your last relationship fizzle?”

“The same reason they all did.” He stared at his coffee. “She wasn’t the right one.”

“How long did it last?”

“Five months. I’ve had longer. Ten months. But she wasn’t the right one either.”

She nodded. “Five months or ten months, either one is long enough to know. Clean break?”

“Not exactly. She thought I was proposing. I wasn’t.”

“Yikes.” Delaney’s brows shot up. “Is this Piper we’re talking about? The woman Vicky mentioned?”

He nodded. “Her family owns the local newspaper.”

“I think I know why you don’t like coming into town.”

He snorted softly. “My relationships don’t often end that badly, but…” He shook his head.

“You probably want to go home, huh?”

He hesitated, and a slow smile curved his mouth. “I’m actually having a pretty good time.”

“Me, too.” She took another bite of the brownie. Hugh was a nice guy. She’d judged him based on his initial reaction to her, but that had been all wrong. He was a guy reluctant to make a commitment for whatever reason, and that was okay with her. After her mother died, her father had remarried so fast she’d doubted the institution of marriage herself for a while. Whatever Hugh’s reason for staying single, it would certainly make things easier. “Why don’t we make a deal?”

Curiosity sparked in his eyes. “What kind of deal?”

“You’re not looking to get married, but you have to make a good show of things for your grandmother, so let’s just agree to have fun for the next twenty-nine days, no strings attached.”

“No strings attached. I can do that. Except…” He squinted. “Didn’t you come here trying to find a husband?”

She couldn’t very well say no to that. Instead, she shrugged. “Sure, but I’m also not going to freak out if that doesn’t happen. You might not even be my type.” He was so her type. She just hadn’t known it until now. She drank the last of her chocolate. Darn, that had gone way too fast.

“And if you fall in love with me? What then?”

“Conceited much?” She laughed. “I could ask you the same question.” She gave him her sexiest look.

He laughed.
Ouch
. Not the response she’d been going for. Then he pointed to the corner of his mouth. “You have a little chocolate right here.”

Oh. She licked at it. “Gone?”

His gaze seemed to be stuck to the spot her tongue had just been. He closed his mouth and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “We should go.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

He stood and looked toward the street. “Nothing.”

Delaney got to her feet and followed him out. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one bad at lying.

Annabelle was saying all the right things. Whether or not that was on purpose, Hugh couldn’t find it in him to care. Maybe she was a witch. Maybe she’d put some kind of spell on him. When her tongue had darted out to lick away the smudge of chocolate, he’d had the most overwhelming desire to kiss her.

Worse than that, his stomach had done something…odd. Something that felt very much like
chemistry
.

The minute he stepped outside the Hallowed Bean, he took a deep breath.

“I don’t believe you.” She was too close. He could still smell her perfume and the chocolate she’d been drinking.

“What are you talking about?” He couldn’t think with her this close. Well, he could, but those thoughts were only going to get him into more trouble.

“You said nothing was wrong. If that’s true, why did you get up and leave like that?”

Did she know how gorgeously pink her lips were? How the sight of her tongue had sent a shiver down his spine? “I needed”—
you—
“air.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you claustrophobic or something? Is that why you don’t want to go to the parade? Look, it’s not a big deal. I can—”

He threaded his hands into her chestnut waves and kissed her. She gasped into his mouth, opening her lips so that his tongue could dart across hers. She tasted like she smelled, sweet and chocolaty. He was doomed.

That didn’t stop him from kissing her some more.

He drove his hands deeper into the silk of her hair, holding her close, savoring her warmth. His body responded the way it normally did when he kissed a beautiful, available woman, except there was more to it than the usual reaction. Something stirred within him, something deeper than just the tightening of his body and the burn of desire.

He broke the kiss and stared at her. “Witch,” he whispered.

Her breath was coming in deep gulps, the rise and fall of her chest distracting him. She blew out a small breath. “What was that?”

“I had to see…” He shook his head. There were no clear thoughts in it. Just feelings and emotions stripped down to the raw essence of what they were. Need. Want. Desire.

“You had to see what?”

He couldn’t explain what he’d done. What was going on in his head. Not now. Not after
that
. “We should go.” He turned.

And almost ran into Piper.

She glowered at him and Annabelle. “Hello,
Hugh
.” Her brows shot up as she gave Annabelle the once over. “New girlfriend already? Guess that shouldn’t surprise me.”

“Hello, Piper.”

Annabelle inhaled, a small sound, but one that cut through him.

Piper crossed her arms. “Aren’t you going to introduce me? Or would you rather pretend I don’t exist?”

With a sigh, Hugh put his hand on the small of Annabelle’s back. Next to Annabelle’s lush curves, Piper’s thinness made her seem brittle. “Annabelle Givens, this is Piper Hodge. My ex-girlfriend.”

“Hello,
Annabelle Givens
.” Piper smirked. It was an ugly look. “There are a lot of us ex-girlfriends in town. Trust me.”

He’d had enough. And part of him actually cared what sort of impression Annabelle might be forming. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re on our way home.”

“Home?” Piper practically screeched the word, which had definitely been a poor choice. With a righteous glare, she leaned toward Annabelle. “I didn’t let him take me home until the fourth date.”

Annabelle didn’t budge. “You have no idea how many dates we’ve been on.”

Piper wasn’t so easily put off. “You know, he’s a serial dater. A real piece of work. Not like his brother, mind you. At least with Julian, you know what you’re getting. A fun night, nothing more. But this one leads you on.”

She was really working up steam now. “Makes you think things are going somewhere, then buh-bye. All done. It’s not me, it’s you.”

Annabelle tapped a finger on her lip. “I think you mean it’s not you, it’s me.”

Piper scowled. “That’s what I said.”

Annabelle cocked her brows and looked down her nose at Piper. “No. You didn’t.”

Hugh stepped between Annabelle and Piper and got a big whiff of chardonnay. “You’re making a scene.”

“I’m not making a scene,” Piper snapped back, her diamond stud earrings flashing. “I’m just telling my
replacement
what to expect.”

She looked around Hugh at Annabelle. “If you think he’s going to marry you, he’s not. Ever. If you don’t believe me, ask half a dozen other girls in this town.”

Annabelle put her hand on Hugh’s arm and eased him back a step. “You’ve got me confused with one of those women who needs a ring on her finger to feel complete. I don’t put those kinds of expectations on men. And I’d say I’m sorry things didn’t work out between you and Hugh, but based on your current amount of crazy, I’d say he dodged a bullet.”

Piper’s jaw dropped.

Annabelle gave her a nod. “You have a good night now.” Then she started walking.

He didn’t need any coaxing to join her. He waited until they were out of Piper’s earshot before speaking. “That was bloody brilliant.”

She pulled him into an alley and turned to him. “I’m glad you enjoyed that, but you don’t get to kiss me and just walk away. Not after we had the whole no strings attached talk.”

He faced her, aware of the tourists milling by and peering down the alley at them. The small crowd that had followed them. “You’re right. But I’d rather not explain here.” He pointed to the street behind him. “Let’s keep walking.”

Thankfully, that seemed to be all right with her because she fell into step with him as he left the alley. She didn’t link her arm through his as she had on Main Street, but he was okay with that. Touching her at this point might take him down a more dangerous path.

As they left the crowds behind, they walked without speaking, without looking at each other. It gave him time to cool off and find the words to explain himself. “I apologize if I startled you or if my advance was unwelcome. I was feeling…very affected by you, and the urge to kiss you became overwhelming. I gave into it.”

She was silent for a few seconds longer than he would have liked. Long enough for him to think his kiss hadn’t been welcome. “You’re a strange man. Not strange, exactly. Curious.”

He’d been called worse. “Why so?”

She cut her eyes at him. “We’d just made a pact about no strings, and then you freak out and kiss me. You don’t think that’s curious? Not to mention the whole encounter with your ex, who is, wow,
very
pretty. That was fun. And yes, I know you had no control over that.”

“I did not
freak
out.” Three-hundred-and-seventy-seven-year-old vampires did not freak out. “I just felt like I was feeling something and wanted to be sure.”

Amusement danced in her eyes. This was not supposed to be funny. “You felt like you were feeling something? Oh, men slay me.” She stopped walking. “And?”

He came to a halt beside her. “And what?”

“Did you feel what you were feeling?”

He frowned. “Now you’re mocking me.”

“Not mocking. Just trying to be
sure
.” She crossed her arms. “Or maybe you need to kiss me again?”

The idea stirred his blood and raised heat in his belly. Perhaps because it was a brilliant idea. He clamped his jaw shut. Not brilliant. Awful. “No, I don’t need to kiss you again.”

Her brows lifted and her mouth pursed. “Okay, good to know.” She started walking again, leaving him to catch up. “I guess we should get home then.”