Holiday with a Vampire: Christmas Cravings. Caridad Pineiro
assurance didn’t make her feel any better. Oh, she believed he wouldn’t bite her. She wasn’t sure why she believed, but she did. It was his promise to leave that she didn’t like. She wasn’t sure why, but the thought of him disappearing from her life was not something she wanted to think about. Staring into his eyes, she saw pain and resignation and regret and felt those same emotions tugging at her.
He didn’t speak again. And Tessa studied him. Without the fangs, he looked like any other man. Better-looking than most though, even with the patches of raw, angry skin on his face and hands.
Every instinct she possessed told her she could trust him. Foolish? Maybe. But she’d learned the hard way to trust her instincts.
They’d kept her alive when her would-be boyfriend had tried to kill her. Those same instincts had led her to this tiny town in Wyoming where she’d found this place and some small semblance of peace. And, they’d led her into the early morning snow to save this vampire’s life.
There had to be a reason for it.
Before she could change her mind, she turned for the kitchen, grabbed the first-aid kit and headed back to where she’d left him. His eyes were open…those dark, penetrating eyes that seemed filled with a strength and a loneliness that drew her to him in spite of his warnings.
Deliberately, she took a step out of the sunlight and into the small room that was filled with shadows and the powerful presence of a wounded vampire. His eyes narrowed on her as she walked closer to him.
“I can’t decide if you’re foolish or brave,” he said at last when she stopped alongside the table. “You’re taking quite a chance, Tessa.”
She held up the kit before setting it onto the table. “You’re hurt. I can help.”
“Why would you want to?”
Good question. Her fear was still rattling inside, twisting her stomach into tight knots. But here she stood, alone with a vampire. “Because I’ve been hurt and alone.”
His gaze narrowed. “You should get the hell away from me.”
“Yeah, you said that already.”
Quicker than she could see, he shot out one hand, grabbed her arm and curled his fingers into her skin. The move was so startling, she jerked back despite her best intentions. He saw it and released her.
“You’re afraid. I can smell it on you.” One corner of his mouth lifted and fell in a blink. “To a vampire, that scent is compelling.”
Her arm tingled where he’d grabbed her. His eyes caught and held her and while she watched, the darks of his eyes bled into the whites until all she could see was her reflection shining back at her from the depths of twin black pools.
“You’re a tempting package, Tessa.” His gaze swept up and down her body with the intimacy of a touch.
“Now you’re deliberately trying to scare me.”
“Damn right.” He straightened up in his chair. “Don’t mistake me for some wounded hero. I’m a monster.”
“No.” Tessa looked at him and shook her head. “You might be a vampire, but you’re not a monster. Trust me on this. I’ve seen a real monster. Up close and personal. You’re nothing like him.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “I’m not a man, either. The man I once was, died a hundred and fifty years ago.”
She opened the first-aid kit. “How?”
“What?”
“How did you die?” She picked up the tube of antiseptic lotion and unscrewed the lid.
“Doesn’t matter.” He shook his head and glanced around the tiny, windowless space.
“Okay. How’d you become a vampire?”
He glanced at her.
“Same question,” she said with a shrug. “Sorry.”
“You’re not reacting the way I would have expected you to.” He looked at her and while he watched her, his eyes softened, becoming again the dark brown they’d been when she first found him.
“More screaming, fewer questions?”
“Frankly, yeah.”
“Well, here’s another one for you,” she said. “How’d you know this room was here? I didn’t and I’ve lived here for six months.”
“I built this room. Hell,” he added on a short, humorless laugh, “built this house.”
“Really?” She picked up one of his hands and tenderly smoothed some of the lotion onto the reddened, already healing skin. Apparently, he didn’t need her help.
As if reading her mind, he said, “We heal fast.”
She put the lotion away and closed the kit with a snap. From the other room, she heard a door open and a man’s voice call out, “Ms. Franklin?”
Grayson snapped a look toward the sound.
Tessa grabbed the first-aid kit. “It’s my guest, Joe Baston.”
“He can’t know I’m here.”
“Yeah. I figured that out on my own.”
But in a few seconds, Joe would be entering the living room and he’d see the bookcase pulled away from the wall. Quickly, Tessa spun to leave the hidden room. She paused at the opening to look back at Grayson. “You’ll be safe here.”
She stared into his eyes as she swung the bookcase closed, sealing her vampire in, and she wondered if she could say the same thing about herself.
Chapter 4
Grayson woke up in the dark. Nothing new there, but for a second he couldn’t figure out why he was awake. He sensed that it was still daylight because his body hadn’t recharged itself yet. The lethargy bore him down into the flattened, hundred-and-fifty-year-old mattress on the narrow bed he’d constructed so long ago.
His burns were mostly healed, but his hands still tingled with the reminder of the close call he’d had. Hell. He hadn’t been caught in daylight since he’d been newly changed. One day with Tessa Franklin and he’d almost become a torch.
Twice.
When the cell phone in his pocket rang again, he realized what had pulled him out of sleep. Grabbing the damn thing, he checked caller ID, then answered—only because he knew this caller wouldn’t give up until he’d gotten through. “What is it, Damon?”
“Where the hell are you?”
Damon St. John, the Vampire King, wasn’t known for his patience in the best of times. With his new reign already threatened by lesser vampires looking to take over, this was clearly not the best of times.
“None of your business,” Grayson told him. “I’m out of this and you know it.”
It was a long-running argument. Damon and he had been friends until Damon had decided to take an active part in governing the vampire “community.” Now, he’d been named king, but there were factions that weren’t happy about Damon being in charge.
Grayson didn’t care. He stayed out of politics, and instead kept to himself, along the way earning a reputation as being a rogue. Which was fine by him. He’d spent the last hundred years keeping a low profile. He’d amassed a fortune out of hard work, luck and, hell, boredom. And the king was counting on Grayson to back him in the fight to keep his throne.
“You’re in Wyoming, aren’t you?” Damon’s disgust came clearly across the phone. “Still punishing yourself for surviving?”
“Back off.” Grayson sat up, bracing his elbows on his knees. This was an old argument, too. Damon had never been able to understand why Grayson