Mortal Bite (Golden Vampires of Tuscany) (8 page)

Paolo had never been curious about the origins of his species, which was
odd, since he loved mysteries. Perhaps he was unsure what he’d find if he dug
too deeply. He assumed vampires, both dark and golden, had always co-existed
with the human population. But many of his kin had lived centuries, longer than
his three hundred years, and could see changes occurring in their vampiric DNA.
New children were born with special powers. Certainly there were breeding
oddities forming when a dark and a golden vampire mated. Exceptions were
occurring at an alarming rate.

He searched what he had been taught. He’d been a gentleman scholar, in
the classical sense, almost three hundred years ago, growing up in Tuscany. But
what fascinated him for most of his life was
human
nature. Paolo knew he wanted to be mortal—be and live life
as a human—even with its brevity. It was these mortals he befriended, drawn
like a moth to the flame. Once he had accepted the turning, he never could
really
be
human again, even though he
walked amongst them as much as was possible.

To idle the time away, he focused on amassing wealth, something he did
very successfully, and tried to live as “normal” a life as possible. He guarded
the
 
secret of his vampire genes,
and was a dedicated husband to his mortal wives. In the end, though he tried
very hard, he failed miserably.

Could someone have discovered the
apex? When their immortality began?
He also wondered if these early
vampires were dark or golden.

Or was there a difference at the
beginning?

He was fascinated.

“Where have you gone?” she asked him, and he realized he’d been
daydreaming.

“I’m enchanted with your story, Cara. I’ve never heard it before.” It was
the truth.

“Well, at this point that is all it is, a good story. But I just feel
like there’s something to it. My classes are the way I pay my bills. But what
I’d rather do is research full time. I haunt libraries like some haunt bars.”

They both laughed. It felt good to see her smile. It seemed to bring out
the sun in the room.

“So this is what you do with your free time?” he asked.

“Pretty much. I have to force myself to get out and do something
decadent, like going to that costume ball.”

“Where you meet a mysterious gentlemen dressed as the creature you
study.”

“Exactly. Like it was fated.”

She was smiling, shaking her head from side to side and looking down at
the table. Paolo wanted to take her in his arms and cover her body with kisses.
He consciously toned down the glamour, releasing her reluctantly. But then he
couldn’t help it. His soul needed warming.

Come to me, Carabella. Show me you
have interest and I will fulfill your wildest fantasies.

She was making figure eights with her forefinger in the water spot from
her iced tea. The design was flowing, sensual. Curved, and that point she
seemed to linger on where the two rings touched and crossed over one another.
Unexpectedly, she looked up into his face and he felt her need. It wasn’t a glamoured
attraction. It was coming purely from her.

“Tell me about yourself, Paolo.”

He sat up straight and laid his forearms on the wooden table, sliding
them over so that his palms rested on her fingers. “Gladly,” he said as he
gently squeezed her hands. He waited to feel any hesitation on her part. There
was none.

“I’m from an old family in Tuscany. Generations of Monteleones have lived
all over the Mediterranean, but mostly in Italy.” He searched the warmth of her
cheeks, down her neck, examining the length of it, and the curve as it
connected to her shoulders.

“And?” she asked.

“You must forgive me, but I find you so beautiful, it is distracting.”

That brought a flush of blood to her face. She jerked her fingers
slightly, but did not remove them from
 
under his large hands. He rubbed the side of her palm with
his thumb. Slowly, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the delicate
flesh of the backs of her fingers, which smelled of jasmine and lavender. He
felt her pulse quicken.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?” She smiled through a sudden realization that she’d been
blushing, embarrassed.

“For not running away.”

She slipped her hands free and dropped them in her lap. He resisted the
temptation to glam her as she straightened her spine and averted her eyes. But
then she came back to him, her lips slightly open, moist. And she looked at his
mouth.

You come to me of your own free
will, Carabella. I will not hurt you.

“I, too, am a bit of a loner,” he began. “I like dark corners in large
rooms, stay to the outside. Don’t like to attract attention. I don’t have any
alpha females in my life, either.”

Her face lit up at that.

“You certainly looked like you enjoyed being the center of attention at
the ball,” she said.

“Faeries. Faeries are always beta. Angels are alpha.” He tilted his head
to see how these words affected her. She leaned in, putting her chin in her palm,
not seeming to notice that she’d planted her elbow
 
in the small puddle of condensation on the table. She finally
shrugged, as if unable to give him a comment, her eyes wandering all over his
face, down the front of his chest.

“Sometimes I get carried away.” He said as he looked directly at her and
was rewarded when he saw the blue vein at her neck pop up, as if greeting his
hungry fangs. He was filled with desire to taste her, and to mate with this
charming mortal woman.

“So tell me something about you I wouldn’t ask,” she whispered.

“I am staying with my brother and his wife in Healdsburg. They have a
small winery there. But I have a home in Tuscany.”

“That wasn’t a very daring reveal. Surely you can do better than that.”
Her eyes sparkled with the taunt.

He hesitated, and then answered, “I have never found the love of my life.
I am the only one of my brothers who has not found that special someone.”

She raised her eyebrows, and waited for more.

“I have tasted wines from all over the world. You might call me a
professional taster, but I have no degrees.”

“A professional taster of women, too, it seems. Never been close to
taking the plunge?”

“Close, yes. Several times. I do enjoy mortal women.” His slip-up earned
him a frown from across the table. He quickly recovered with a smile,
indicating it was a joke, “I identify playing the part of your vampires. The
dark loner, brooding type, occasionally bored with my life. I don’t attract
women who last very long.”

It was the truth, and seemed to satisfy her.

“What do you do to them to send them away?”

That was a good question. “Every good fantasy has an untimely death,
right? You believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy…”

“You really believe a fantasy love can’t last forever?” she asked, dismissing
the childhood references.

“As in immortal?” he asked. He was coming closer to the dangerous edge of
a reveal, and he knew she’d rein herself in very soon.

“I mean a love that can last a lifetime,” she spoke the innocent words
which captured him. He could see this was important to her.

“With all my heart. Yes.” He placed one palm on his chest as his other
hand wanted to hold hers. But Cara was primly sitting, hiding her hands under
the table. He could feel her resolve, a combination of control and desire.

Let me unleash your inner
fantasies, Carabella. Let me teach you the pleasures of…

Cara’s cell phone blurted out the sound of a car horn. She fished for it
from her computer case and answered, “Hello Johnny. What’s up?”

Paolo listened to the squawking on the other end of the line. He looked
out the window as he heard her assistant’s tinny words. “You wanted me to go
down to Berkeley to speak to that researcher. Can I bail on the office time if
I promise to do it for you this afternoon?”

“Anyone signed up?” Cara asked.

“Well, I’d blocked out the afternoon for our discussion time, so I don’t
think anyone will be here. I can’t go to Berkeley tomorrow, so thought I’d take
advantage of the time today. You okay with that?”

Cara looked at Paolo, who was pretending he had no idea the lovely woman
in front of him was now free for the entire afternoon.

“I’m fine with that. Leave it marked off. I’ll see you Wednesday. Thanks
for calling.” She ended the call and placed her phone on the table.

Cara’s screen saver was a picture of Frank Langella dressed as Dracula.

“Good news?” he asked. He tried not to stare at the actor’s picture.

“It seems my office hours have been cancelled.”

Paolo took her hands in his. “I’ve got some excellent thoughts on how we might
spend the afternoon. If you’re willing.”

She stared at their entwined fingers as she allowed her forefinger to rub
along his flesh. Her touch sent him into a trance of desire.

“I think I might like that.”

And that was all she had to say.

The driver took them the back way, up through vineyards in Alexander
Valley. Paolo leaned back into the leather seat so he could get a side view of
Bella, who was fascinated with the dark limo’s interior and sparkling lights.
She looked like she was on her first chauffeur-driven ride for her high school prom.
She turned and caught him staring at her, but he didn’t care. If it concerned
her, she didn’t show it.

“I like all the colors this time of year,” she said, looking out the
window at the richness of vineyards bursting with gold and burgundy.

It was true, but the color he liked best was the red of her lips, and her
flushed cheeks, and her light pink fingernail polish. He wanted to feel those
pink fingers on his flesh, feel the sharpness of her nails digging into his
back as he plundered her deeply, claimed her for his own over and over again.

Even though he didn’t use glamour, she leaned into him, as he pulled an
arm around her shoulder. She sighed and seemed to melt into his frame. Her hot
flesh sent warmth to every cell of his body. “I feel absolutely decadent,” she
whispered. “Have never done this in the middle of a school day.”

“Ah. And here I thought it was perhaps the company you’re keeping.”

She grinned. “That, too.”

“Come. We shall celebrate.” He leaned forward and opened a glass of port,
pouring one for each of them.

“You come prepared.”

“Always.” He did not tell her he traveled with a case at all times.

“So you had a feeling this would happen?”

“Eventually, yes.” It was difficult not to give her the gloating grin he
knew would turn her off.

“Eventually? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Like you, I’m a fairly good judge of people.”

“People, or women?”

“Women too.”
Like I can tell what
you are feeling.
He didn’t think he would have the gift of mindspeech with
Cara, but perhaps could develop it in time. If he was given the time, that is.
Paolo could sense her emotions.

He felt her pulse quicken slightly.
 
Her eyes widened and he could hear the little breath she sucked in and
tried to hide.

“Bella—may I call you Bella?”

“Yes.”

“Bella, you are safe with me. And,” he pointed to the chauffer, “we have
a witness.”

“Behind glass,” she said.

“Absolutely, so even your words are safe with me.” She was lovely the way
her eyes danced in the afternoon sunlight.
For
my eyes only. Words for my ears only.

“This rather reminds me of one of those novels I read. The vampire
seducing a mortal woman.”

“Hmmm…I thought I was being subtle,” he whispered to the top of her head.
He was going to say more, but the giggle she gave him as she squeezed herself against
his chest sent a spark traveling straight down to his groin.

Was it always going to be like this around her? Her lightness of spirit
thrilled him. His fondness for mortal women was driving his delight higher than
it ever had been before. So uncomplicated, simple, and with a lack of the darkness
he found in vamp women, who liked to dominate and push their power. Sex with
them was a tug of war and a near fight to the death. When he was younger, he
used to love it. But especially since Maya, he’d lost all desire to bed women
with fangs. In between his wives, he’d usually sought the arms of mortal women.

With Bella, he
wanted
to be
gentle. He liked the feeling of being bridled.

“Is there anything you want?” he asked as he played with curls falling at
the base of her neck. He lightly touched her skin with the tips of his fingers.
She jumped like this gesture scared her at first.

Relax.

“Did you just ask me to relax?” She leaned forward and looked back at him
with a frown.

Incredible.
She’d heard his
thoughts.

“As a matter of fact,
I did.
That’s very strange. We must have an extra connection.” He was barely able to
hold back his desire to ravish her with kisses.

“And why did you say that?”

“I felt you were nervous, perhaps.” He laughed at how trusting she was.
“No, Bella, I’m just making it all up. I had no idea.”

That seemed to settle her.

He knocked on the glass as they pulled up to the popular Jim Town Store,
a Healdsburg icon. The chauffer opened their door, Paolo helped her alight, and
she held his hand as they climbed the old wooden steps of the roadside café and
eclectic general store.

“Coffee?” he asked. “You want a cappuccino?”

“Sure.”

Overlooking the two-lane highway with the occasional car driving past,
she sipped her cappuccino, her gaze far away. He tried not to look, but it was
hard keeping his eyes off her face, the soft lips leaving a pink semicircle on
the edge of the white paper cup. He wanted everything about her, even the paper
cup she would eventually discard.

Enchanting. She is enchanting.

“So tell me,” she said.

He didn’t know what she meant. “Tell you what?”

“Where are we going? Didn’t you expect me to ask you?”

“My brother has a home in Healdsburg. I thought I would show it to you.
He and his wife have recently had a baby.”

“You’re visiting from Italy. For how long?”

“Haven’t decided.” He fingered the back of her hand as it clutched the
cup. “When I’m ready.”

She nodded. “What are you here for?”

Very good question. Perhaps to fall
in love. To forget. To learn to be a father. To start to live again.
“I
came here so my son could spend some time in California with my brother and his
wife.”

“He has been raised in Italy, then?”

“Actually, no. But we do travel a lot.

“I see,” she said.

Do you see, my Bella? Do you feel
the urgency between us?
As if she could feel what he said, she sat up
straight. She smiled. Did she hear him?

“So what do you do for a living?” she asked.

“I study human nature.”

“A psychologist?”

“No.”

“A psychiatrist, a doctor?”

“No. I read. I live. I have the luxury of being a gentleman of means,
free to do what I wish, to pursue my interests as I will.”

“You sound positively ancient. Johnny warned me about you.” Her eyes
twinkled as she tilted her head.

He stopped smiling. Some of his mirth was bottled. The pause was
pregnant, on purpose. He wanted to see how she would answer herself.

She had blushed. “I don’t mean to suggest you’re way older than I am.
Perhaps a couple of years…”

I like that guess, Bella.

“But I haven’t heard anyone calling themselves a gentleman other than in
a movie, or in one of my romance novels.” She took another sip of her
cappuccino. “You have a funny way of speaking sometimes. Like you’ve traveled
here from another time.”

He was nailed by her warm brown eyes, caught, as if staked through the
heart. He willingly allowed himself to squirm, if it meant she was looking at
him. Anything to have her look at him.

“It is my family, my old family roots you are sensing.”
That and the way my fangs ache to taste you,
to throw up your skirts and take the blood from your upper thigh, to satisfy
myself by plunging in and looking at the rapture of your sweet, peach-colored
face. I could bring you to heaven and back, if you will allow me…allow me in…

The glamour had taken hold. Her eyes slightly crossed and she became stiff,
motionless and staring straight at him, as if tethered. He was sorry for this
lapse, but couldn’t help himself. He slipped to a chair next to her, placed his
palm under her chin, turned her face toward his as she fell against him.
Without knowing if it was right or wrong, he covered her mouth with his. Her
soft lips welcomed him.

She turned her body into his chest, her right arm coming up over his
shoulder to play with the hair at the back of his neck. She drew her fingers
under his ear and along the bone of his jaw, and touched his lips, as if
needing to feel the kisses between them.

He whispered words he used to hear in his dreams as a young man. Words of
love passed down to him from others who spoke a tongue that was long dead. The
incantation sent her pulse soaring. His followed along right behind.

“Bella I need…”

“Yes. I need this, too,” she said. Her eyes told him he could have his
way with her right here on the table in the Jim Town Store, if he wanted. But
he wanted her all to himself.

“I know a place,” he said.

“Your brother’s home?”

“No. Some place we can be alone.”

“Yes.” She held his head in her palms and kissed him of her own free
will. He could hear the pulsing of the veins underneath the delicate white
flesh at her wrists, which were positioned right over his ears. His mouth went
to one wrist as he kissed her there, and felt the lifeblood inside her rise up
to meet his tongue.

He held back. This would have to be just sex. He couldn’t bite her. Not
yet. Perhaps not ever. But God in Heaven, the sex would be glorious, and that
would have to be enough for now.

Almost lifting her out of the chair, he took her back to the waiting
limo. The driver had been asleep in the front, and came round to open the door
for them.

“Is she all right, sir?” he asked as he frowned at Cara’s flushed face
and half-opened eyes.

“She’s tired. I’m going to take her to the Stone Creek Inn. You know it?”

“Sure. You need me to call ahead?”

“Please.”

“No problem,” the driver said as he closed the door. In the privacy of
the darkened limo interior, he had her all to himself, for a few seconds.

“Bella, are you okay going with me some
place where we can…”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Please. I would like that.”

He covered her mouth again, his hand finding the thrill of the feel of
her nipples budding through her bra. He couldn’t wait to have her naked.

The car purred along the curved country road and up a noisy crushed
granite driveway to a stone structure with a water wheel turning slowly to the
side.

“I will call for you when she feels more like traveling,” he said to the
driver, who grinned back at him in response.

“Of course, sir. I’ll return to Marcus’ home, then.”

“Perfect.”

Inside the reception area he secured a room on the upper floor, one with
a view of the vineyards below. Cara was leaning against him, her hands
untucking his shirt, her palms finding his chest as she slid them up and rubbed
herself against his back.

The clerk was efficient, seeming to take no notice.

“Would you have a bottle of your best port delivered to our room?”

By the time they were at the top of the stairs and had passed the water
wheel, Cara had his shirt completely unbuttoned. He was glad there wasn’t much
of a crowd on a Monday afternoon. They didn’t pass a soul.

He unlocked the heavy carved door and stepped inside an oversized room
with a roaring fireplace and huge four-poster bed covered in silk pillows. He
turned to see her expression, and was hit with her flying body as she slammed
into him and they toppled to the bed.