The Deadliest Bite

eighteenth century.

Some of that showed in the choices he’d made for the room, as wel . A huge window seat spanned the whole length of the front wal . Covered with lace-edged cushions, it gave the lazy lounger a spectacular view of Ohio’s countryside. Because Vayl didn’t live in Cleveland, but had bought a house about twenty minutes outside the city, where if you stood stil long enough you could hear cows mooing across the cornfields.

He hadn’t bothered draping that window, although he had thrown Bergman at it, which meant it was covered by a UV shield that kept perverts (and the worst rays of the sun) from peeping inside. It was also (along with the rest of the house) protected by the most sophisticated alarm system known to man.

Which was probably why when Vayl did chil out in the room, he could feel extra-relaxed in the high-backed white sofa that sat perpendicular to the fireplace. Tal gold tassel-shaded lamps stood at each end of the couch, though he could see in the dark, so they had to be more for looks than practicality. I hadn’t figured out yet if he preferred the couch or the overstuffed blue chair across from it, its round, tufted footstool reminding me of a foofy dog set permanently into begging position. After al , that would give him a better view of the gleaming white instrument sitting at a diagonal in the corner opposite the widely arched entryway. It was, in a fact, a real antique pianoforte. Vayl had played it for me the night before, some classical piece that would be great to fal asleep to. I’d matured enough, in the time I’d known him, not to say what I was thinking out loud. But as soon as I got a chance I’d be taking that guy to a Kil ers concert. He had no idea what he was missing.

I lifted up the window seat, expecting to find boxes of puzzles and old toys like the ones my Granny May had stored in hers. But either Vayl wasn’t into storage or his house was big enough to display al his goodies, because the cabinet under the bench was empty. A perfect hiding place for one five-foot-five twenty-six-year-old who badly wanted to see her vamp shed his shorts.

Unless she had a touch of the Claustrophobia.

I stared at the dark, empty space. Three seconds later I decided it had shrunk in the three seconds I’d considered it. While my competitive streak warred with my fear, I looked around for an alternative.

A round table covered with a floor-length blue satin cloth stood in the corner next to another blue chair, this one less comfy but more elegant than its fireside cousin. Under the table? Less confining, since the cover was flexible. But no. It held too much glass; both an oldfashioned globe lamp embossed with blooming roses, and a figurine of a hummingbird tasting nectar from a red petunia.

However, behind the chair… yup, that’ll work. I’d shucked my shoes and swung one leg over the back of the chair when the doorbel . Fucking. Rang.

Vayl skidded around the corner. “Jasmine!”

Shit, damn, shit, shit, shit, shit! I tried to think of a less graceful position for a woman who’d deliberately set out to look sexy to be caught in. But I couldn’t imagine anything worse than straddling a wing chair with one hand on the wal for balance, one foot on the armrest, and my mostly bare ass stuck halfway between. So I yel ed, “Get out!”

The screen door slammed. Moments later a car peeled away.

“I think I scared off your visitor,” I said.

“It is midnight in the middle of nowhere. Either he had no business being here in the first place.

Or his business would have proved a maddening distraction from my business, which is much more important.” Vayl leaned against the door frame, crossing his hands behind his back so I’d be sure to get a great view of his broad, curlcovered chest. He grinned, his fangs giving him the look of a hungry lion. “But I have a feeling you were not speaking to him to begin with.”

“Wel … no. I mean—” I motioned to myself. “This isn’t how I figured you’d find me. In fact, you weren’t supposed to—Oh shit, there’s no way to get out of this position without looking even more ridiculous. Turn around.”

“I wil do no such thing.”

“But—”

“Jasmine, your body is more delectable than melted chocolate on a sea of sugar candies. And the fact that you wore that lovely confection for me—”

“It’s coming right off,” I warned him as I reclaimed my leg from the no-girl’s-land between the chair and the wal . “Stupid piece of crack-grinding—urf!” Whatever I’d meant to say got lost in the spin as Vayl swept me off the chair and twirled us around the room in a spontaneous waltz. His laugh, a deep-throated sound of such genuine mirth that I always ended up joining him, accompanied us even better than the clinking keys of the pianoforte would have. Which was where I ended up sitting, my hands on the lid beside my hips, pinned there as his arms wrapped around me and he covered my lips, my neck, my shoulders with kisses that grew more passionate with each brush of his lips as they crossed my skin, leaving trails of fire that grew with every indrawn breath.

And just before my claustrophobia kicked in, he loosened his arms so he could feather his fingers up my spine and down my shoulder blades. I shivered.

“Cold?” he murmured into my left breast.

“Nnng.” I laced my fingers through his and brought them up to my mouth, smiling triumphantly as he moaned.

“We need cushions,” he said.

I wrapped my legs around Vayl’s hips and locked my elbows around his neck, which was corded with muscle that had been packed on in the days when heavy lifting meant cutting wood for the family’s fire and hammering horseshoes out of raw iron. I ran my fingers through his jet-black hair, his soft curls springing around my nails playful y like they, too, realized what little time we had left to just enjoy each other.

We were halfway to the couch when I whispered, as I nuzzled his earlobe, “Al I need is a flat surface. Baby, it doesn’t even need to be horizontal.”

Low growl rumbling from his chest into mine as he veered off couch-course. We slammed into the wal , knocking a gasp from me that blew into his ear, making him shiver with delight. His fangs scraped down my neck and suddenly I couldn’t touch him, kiss him, love him enough. I wanted to become a part of him, dive through him and leave the finest part of me inside his heart. And the best part was knowing, by the urgency in his touch, in his