Under a Vampire Moon (18 page)

“Yes, I did, I—,” he began, and then shifted gears and said, “Maybe, but they had a rack of novels in there. I thought I’d see if there was anything to read.”

Chuckling at catching him out, she nodded. “Sounds good. I wouldn’t mind something to replace the book I’m reading anyway. It’s just too slow for my mood. I’ll read it another time.”

They chatted about books they’d enjoyed as they walked, and Carolyn found herself really wishing Christian was older and straight. He was interested in the same outings she was, the same food, and now she learned he had the same damned taste as she did when it came to reading. It made her think maybe mother nature had messed up and she was supposed to be a gay male. She considered that briefly, but shook her head. She just couldn’t imagine finding it amusing to sign her name in the snow with urine. What was with that anyway?

“T
hat was band boy, wasn’t it?”

Carolyn froze and turned guiltily from the door to find Beth standing in the kitchen doorway, expression grim and arms crossed like a disapproving mother. Forcing a smile, she asked, “Did you find the crackers and ginger ale?”

“Yes, thank you,” Bethany said. “And don’t change the subject. I saw him. That was band boy who walked you to the door.”

Carolyn rolled her eyes, wondering why she felt like a teenage girl caught messing around with the local bad boy. “His name is Christian. And he’s very nice.”

“He’s using you, Caro,” Bethany said with exasperation.

“Actually, today I was using him,” Carolyn said dryly, moving past her to get to the fridge and grab a bottle of water. “He kept me company.”

“While you played his beard,” Beth said grimly.

“I wasn’t playing beard. No one was around. We just hung out and had lunch together,” she said firmly, opening the bottle and quickly downing half of it. While they’d avoided the sun all afternoon, the heat was enough to dehydrate anyone. She needed water.

Beth moved to retrieve the ginger ale from the fridge, and then collected a glass before asking, “Are you seeing him again?”

“We’re meeting in an hour to have dinner before his show,” she admitted and then added reluctantly, “And then we’re all going dancing after.”

“All being his family too?” Beth asked grimly, pushing her glass against the ice dispenser bar. When Carolyn nodded, she asked, “So tonight you’ll be his beard again?”

Carolyn sighed. “What is your problem here? I don’t mind, why should you?”

“Because I watched this for years with Brent. You avoided entanglements with straight men by hanging with him all the time. Now you’re doing it all over again,” she said impatiently, opening the ginger ale and pouring some into her glass. “How the hell am I supposed to get you laid if you have band b—Christian,” she corrected herself dryly when Carolyn scowled. “How am I going to get you laid if you have Christian hanging around, scaring off all the prospects?”

Carolyn sighed and walked over to give her a hug. “I know you’re worried, but I’m really not ready for a relationship anyway.”

“Well, when are you going to be ready, Caro?” Bethany asked quietly. “You’re forty-two years old and have been separated for two years. You’re not getting any younger and it just gets harder the older you get.” Beth shook her head and picked up her glass to take a sip, then set it back with a sigh. “Well, go get ready. You don’t want to be late for your date.”

Carolyn winced, but simply turned and headed to her room.

“S
o? How did it go?”

Christian turned from closing the door, a smile pulling at his lips. “Good. We talked a lot and joked and”—he shrugged—“she’s starting to relax around me.”

Gia had been peering hard at his forehead as he spoke and continued to for a moment afterward. He knew she was searching his memories as he talked . . . which was damned annoying really. But he knew new life mates were easily read and simply waited for her assessment. He felt oddly relieved when she nodded.

“It’s the lack of sexual pressure,” Gia said with a slow smile. “It’s working. So long as you aren’t putting on the Latin lover moves with her she relaxes. She’s still attracted, I can see that from your memories, but she can put it aside and just enjoy your company.” She grinned, and hopped across the foyer to give him a quick, hard hug. “This is going to work, Christian!”

“Yeah, I think it might,” he agreed with a grin. Throwing his arm affectionately around her shoulders, he urged her toward the kitchen. He needed blood. They’d sat in the shade most of the afternoon, but between runs to the drinks shack and walks up and down the hill, he was low and needed a refill.

“But we should probably lay off the Latin lover business for a while to allow her to stay relaxed,” Gia murmured as she watched him retrieve a bag of blood.

Christian frowned. He didn’t really want to lay off the “Latin lover business,” as Gia had called it. The afternoon had been both enjoyable and hell for him. He’d enjoyed talking to Carolyn and how she was opening up to him, but he’d also had to constantly fight the urge to touch her hand or arm, and kiss her as they’d chatted. He wanted her, and remaining so well behaved and cool around her was hard as hell. The only way he’d managed it all afternoon was by promising himself that tonight he could at least hold her hand, put his arm around her, and hold her close on the dance floor, their bodies sliding together to Caribbean music.

“Gia’s right.”

Christian lowered the bag he’d just raised and glanced to the door to see Marguerite entering with Julius on her heels. “How long have you been here?”

“About fifteen minutes. We were in the living room when you entered,” she answered, pausing at his side to kiss his cheek.

Christian frowned as he hugged her, wondering how he’d missed noting them in the living room. The foyer opened up on it.

“And I think Gia’s right about keeping the pressure off for a bit,” Marguerite said as Christian popped the bag of blood to his mouth. “It shouldn’t be hard though. We’re dining in the fancy restaurant tonight. No one would expect you to drape yourself over her chair there. And then you’ll be onstage during your show.” She paused and frowned. “I’ll make sure Genie is there, then I’ll have her sit on one side of Caro during the show and I’ll take the chair on her other so you can’t sit beside her during your break.”

Christian scowled as he saw his opportunities for touching and kissing narrowing.

“What about the dancing?” Gia asked. “We’re supposed to go to the club for dancing afterward.”

Christian began to smile around the bag in his mouth. He could put up with behaving himself for the first part of the night if he could look forward to holding her in his arms on the dance floor. He’d run his hands down her back, molding her body to his, and bend his head to inhale her sweet scent as he nuzzled her ear and—

“Down, boy,” Julius said, snapping Christian out of his imaginings. “If Gia and your mother think you shouldn’t dance with her, you shouldn’t. We’ll go to a nightclub that plays mostly fast music.”

“Even those play the occasional slow song,” Gia pointed out with a frown, inadvertently raising Christian’s hopes again.

“Then the boys will dance with Carolyn so Christian can’t,” Julius said firmly.

Christian dragged the now empty bag of blood irritably from his teeth. “Don’t you think she’ll be suspicious if that happens? Besides, we aren’t at work now. You can’t force the boys to dance with her.”

“I’ll do it,” Zanipolo announced, making his presence known, and Christian turned to scowl at the man. Men, he corrected himself as his gaze slid over his three cousins. They had apparently entered the kitchen while he was distracted and were now lounging around the dining room table, all three of them nodding, apparently happy to dance with his woman.

“And she won’t be suspicious if you complain and your cousins make it appear that they are deliberately torturing you,” Julius said with a shrug.

Christian cursed and turned back to the fridge for a second bag of blood.

“It’s for the best, dear.” Marguerite stepped to his side to rub one hand up and down his back as he slapped the second bag to his teeth. “And you can still have a good-night kiss. That will be expected. Your father will make sure of that again, won’t you dear?” she asked, glancing toward her husband.

“Of course. I’m happy to help him get his woman,” Julius said generously, and Christian’s eyes narrowed. The man was just enjoying this way too much. He supposed he deserved it though. He’d given him rather a hard time about his romancing skills when it came to Marguerite.

Sighing, he shook his head, his mind turning to the promised good-night kiss to come. At least they were allowing him that. It wasn’t much compared to what he wanted, but it was something, he supposed.

“It won’t be long, Christian. A little patience now will make all the difference,” Marguerite assured him solemnly.

Tearing the empty bag from his mouth, he muttered, “Right,” and turned to retrieve another.

“I
f you keep looking at her like that, she’s not going to continue to believe you’re gay.”

Christian scowled at Santo’s words, but didn’t tear his eyes from Carolyn. He just couldn’t seem to. The way she moved to the music was beautiful to behold, there was no inhibition in her now. The usually tightly constrained, boxed-up woman was all fire and passion when she danced . . . just as she’d been in his arms in their dream. She’d come alive then, as if waking from a dream rather than drifting into one, and that afternoon when they’d been alone and he’d been struggling so hard to behave, she’d revealed a wicked sense of humor that had drawn several startled laughs from him.

Christian was coming to see that the true Carolyn hid from the world behind the calm conservative exterior she presented. Whether held there by fears or simple self-consciousness he didn’t know, but she was a sleeping beauty waiting to be awakened and he was dying to wake her.

His eyes narrowed as a mortal male insinuated his way into the foursome of women, sliding in to dance between Genie and Carolyn. He saw her step falter, and uncertainty flash across her face as she was forced from whatever world she’d slipped away to as she’d danced. The mortal saw it too, and like a predator smelling a weak member of the herd, began to try to isolate her, turning his back to Genie, Gia, and Marguerite, focusing on Carolyn as he began to move forward, forcing her back and farther from them.

Christian could have controlled the mortal and sent him on his way, but in truth, he was so sexually frustrated at the moment that a more physical response appealed to him, and between one breath and the next he was on the dance floor. He’d used a speed his kind usually avoided to prevent drawing attention, so was surprised when he arrived only to find his father and cousins all there as well, moving to surround him, a wall of hard flesh.

“Back to your seat,” his father said firmly.

Christian scowled, his gaze sliding past him to see that either his mother or Gia had taken control of the mortal and was already sending him away. Carolyn was moving back to return to the square they’d made on the dance floor since arriving at the club half an hour ago. She had also lost that uncertainty again, her body moving to the beat without the self-consciousness the mortal’s interest had caused.

“Now,” Julius said grimly.

Knowing his cousins would just drag him there if he didn’t go willingly, Christian turned and moved back to the table. Dropping back into his seat, he ignored the other men then, his gaze locking on Carolyn again and staying there as he imagined she was dancing for him. He would ask her to dance for him once they were mates, he decided . . . naked. He wanted to see her naked, her hips grinding, and her breasts—

“You’re wound pretty tight,” Julius said grimly as he settled back into his own seat and let his eyes slide back to the women.

Christian grunted. “Are you surprised?”

“No, I would be too,” he admitted. “But you have to tone down the intensity before she comes back to the table. You’ll terrify her like this. She’s not ready for it.”

When Christian merely scowled harder, he sighed and added, “Son, Caro has never experienced any kind of passion before you. The level the nanos induce will—”

“None at all?” Christian interrupted with amazement, finally managing to tear his gaze from Carolyn. He knew she hadn’t had sex for seven years, but had thought surely there must have been some passion at the beginning of the marriage.

Julius hesitated, and then said, “Her mind is an open book, and her relationship with her husband—”

“Ex-husband,” Christian snapped. “She’s mine.”

“Soon to be ex-husband,” Julius said quietly. “And she isn’t going to be yours if you don’t listen to me on this.”

He ground his teeth together, but nodded grimly. “Go ahead.”

“Her marriage is on her mind a lot because of you,” he said solemnly. “She is comparing him to you in every way, and he’s coming up very short,” he added when Christian started to get riled again.

He relaxed a bit at that news, and held his tongue for his father to continue.

“Her husband was after her money. He served her up sweet words and milquetoast kisses and romanced her into a quick marriage. He even kept it up for a while afterward, but eventually it was too much effort and he began to neglect her, and then to insult and abuse her.”