Lynsay Sands - The Reluctant Vampire

“A little.” She sighed, squeezing even closer. She could hear his heart pounding, a quick tattoo, and slid one hand from his lapel to glide it up to touch his face and then onto his ear. Caressing the cooling skin gently, she whispered, “You’re cold too.” Then she leaned up on her tiptoes and blew her hot breath against his ear before whispering into it, “Does this help?”

Harper muttered something she didn’t quite catch, and then he turned his head and claimed her lips. Drina immediately slid her hands into his hair and let her mouth drift open, inviting him in. . and all hell broke loose. It was as if she’d torn away chains that had bound and gagged him. She found herself suddenly pressed hard against the wall behind her by both his hips and his hands at her shoulders, and then he was undoing her coat, his hands almost tearing at the buttons in his eagerness to reach what was inside. And all the while his mouth devoured hers, his tongue invading and exploring.

Drina responded in kind, digging the nails of one hand into his scalp while the other dropped around to clasp his behind and urge him on as he ground his hips against her. They both gasped with relief when he managed to get the last button of her coat undone and jerked the lapels apart. When his hands immediately moved to cover her breasts, she moaned and arched into the touch.

They froze when the door opened beside them. Harper tore his mouth from hers, and they both turned to stare blankly at the waiter, who had frozen halfway out the door. The mortal’s eyes were wide and his expression amazed as he peered through the glass door at them. Their waiter.

“Oh,” Harper muttered, and then, seeming to realize he was still clutching her breasts, released them at once and stepped back from her, only to step closer again when the wind caught her open lapels and began to whip them about. “Here.”

He quickly pulled the sides closed, then glanced around almost desperately. Relief rushed across his face when he spotted the car at the curb, and he caught Drina’s arm and urged her quickly toward it, muttering, “Have a good night,” over his shoulder.

Drina nearly fell into the car when Harper opened the door. She quickly scrambled across the seat, her eyes flashing to the driver and then skittering away as she wondered how long he’d been there and what he’d seen. Then Harper was inside, and they were pulling away. A glance out the rear window showed the waiter still standing frozen in the open restaurant door, staring after them, and Drina shook her head and turned to face front, her hands automatically doing up the buttons of her coat.

Once done, she felt a little less scattered and glanced nervously to Harper. Spotting the frown on his face, she bit her lip, worried about what he was thinking. It seemed to her that giving him time to think too much was probably a bad thing at that point, and she opened her mouth to say something, anything, but he was quicker.

“I’m sorry.”

Drina smiled. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault the waiter came out.” He blinked at her words, and she quickly added, “Now it’s your turn. You said you were a cook?”

Harper hesitated, but then relaxed back against the seat. “Yes.”

“Was your father a cook too?”

“No. He was a baron with a large holding of his own, as well as one he gained on turning and marrying my mother. He wanted me to take over running Mother’s holding, but I had other interests.”

“Food,” she suggested.

Harper nodded, and then chuckled, the last of the tension slipping from him. “I loved food. So much so, I think had I been mortal, I would have been four or five hundred pounds by the time I was twenty. I spent all my time in the kitchens, following our cook around and learning all I could. Not to mention sampling every little thing that went through it.

“By the time I was old enough to leave the nest, I had decided I wanted to be the greatest cook ever. Of course, to be the greatest cook, I had to have access to every possible ingredient there was, which meant I needed to work for someone wealthy enough to find and purchase those ingredients. I left home and went straight to the home of the wealthiest person I knew of. Emperor Elect Maximillian.”

Drina’s eyebrows rose, and a smile tugged at her lips. “Straight to the top, huh?”

Harper nodded wryly. “I presented myself in the kitchens, sure they would be glad to have me. Unfortunately, the head cook was less than impressed. He wanted nothing to do with me, but with a little persuasion, I managed to convince him to give me a position.”

“What kind of persuasion are we talking here?” Drina asked with amusement. “The mortal or immortal variety?”

“Immortal,” he admitted ruefully. “But, only enough to convince him to give me the lowest position in the kitchen. I wanted to prove myself and work my way up to chef.”

“Ah,” Drina said, and then asked, “and you did?”

“Yes.” He smiled faintly. “It took me a lot of years though, and then I only got to be his head chef for a couple of years before I had to move on.”

“The not aging can really be a pain,” she said with sympathy.

“Hmm.” He nodded, and then shrugged. “It turned out all right. He gave me the medieval version of an employer reference and wished me well. I spent the next fifty years or so cooking in royal palaces in various countries, extending my knowledge and honing my skills.

“Eventually, however, I grew tired of working for someone else and wanted to open my own business. As much as I love cooking, it wasn’t going to make me the money I needed to do that, though, so I had to hang up my spoon for a bit. I tried various things, but the most successful was working with a band of mercenaries. Much to my surprise, I turned out to be a natural on the battlefield.”

“Why would you be surprised?” she asked with a smile. “Immortals are naturals in battle. We’re stronger, faster, and hard to kill.”

“Yes, but you also need skill, or you’re likely to lose your head, and I’d spent most of my life in the kitchens. Even as a youth, I shunned practice in the yard with the men to trail the cook around,” he said solemnly. “However, I found that I was a natural in battle. And I turned out to be a whiz at planning for successful attacks and defenses, which turned out to be not much different to planning a large feast.”

“What?” she said with disbelief, and he nodded solemnly.

“It’s all in the details,” he assured her with a grin, and Drina burst out laughing. He watched her with a smile, and then said, “Actually, my knowledge of castle kitchens came in handy during sieges. I knew what they were likely to have on hand and how long it would last and so on.” He shrugged. “I did well for myself. Well enough that I made the money I needed to start my own pub. And that did well enough that I was able to start a second and so on, and then I moved on to restaurants, and then hotels.”

“How did you end up moving from restaurants to hotels?” she asked with surprise.

“Well, I had opened one of my restaurants on the main floor of a hotel in Paris. The restaurant earned a reputation and did a booming business, but at the same time the hotel was beginning to flounder. I was considering moving the restaurant elsewhere before the hotel folded altogether, but I was becoming a bit bored. I had lost my interest in food after a couple of centuries, and it took a lot of the joy from cooking. The moment I had noticed that happening, I’d hired the best chefs I could find to take over the actual cooking in my establishments, but it left me basically a pencil pusher. I needed a challenge, so rather than move the restaurant, I decided to buy the hotel and see if I couldn’t make it a successful concern again.