Lynsay Sands - The Reluctant Vampire

There hadn’t been a crumb in the kitchen. No blood either. Fortunately, Harper had woken and come to find her as she’d realized that and managed to distract her from both hungers with a different one. Really, kitchen counters were the perfect height for such a distraction.

“I’ll call you back,” Harper said, glancing to her when she began to draw invisible circles on his chest. He reached out to set the phone in its cradle, then turned, rolling Drina onto her back and coming down on top of her with his face at chest level.

“Who was that?” she murmured, stretching beneath him and smiling as she felt something hard press against her leg.

“The pilot,” he mumbled, catching her hands and pressing them down on either side of her head as he nibbled his way along her collarbone. “The storm’s over. We can fly now.”

“Oh.” Drina sighed with keen disappointment that this idyllic period was over. “We should go.”

“We will,” he assured her, his mouth moving lower now, making a beeline for one breast. “After.”

Drina hesitated, but her sense of duty made her shake her head. “I should-”

Harper released one hand to cover her mouth, then lifted his head and peered at her solemnly. “It’s midafternoon. We can’t land in the schoolyard until evening. It’s a school day.”

“Oh,” she said, and then smiled slowly. “Well, in that case. .”

Turning abruptly, she caught him by surprise and managed to roll him onto his back again, and immediately rose to straddle him. Smiling down at his surprise, she said, “You should feed me.”

Harper peered at her for a moment, his eyes narrowing in calculation, and then he heaved a reluctant sigh. “Yes, I suppose. I am hungry.”

Drina blinked and managed to hide her disappointment. She’d rather hoped for some protest, maybe a little wrestling session, and then round six of mad passionate sex. . or maybe it would have been round seven. She’d lost count. It didn’t matter anyway, it seemed Harper was more hungry for food than her.

Forcing a smile, she started to slip off of him, to stand beside the bed, and then cried out with surprise when she was caught around the waist and tugged back onto the bed.

Drina landed on her back on the mattress, and he was immediately coming down on top of her again. Harper did seem to like to be the one in control in the bedroom, she’d noticed. Oddly enough, Drina found she didn’t mind, which was kind of unexpected when she considered that she had spent most of her life struggling for independence and control in the rest of her life. But then, perhaps that was why. It was nice to lay down the burden and let him steer the boat, especially when it was such a pleasant journey.

“I thought you were hungry?” She laughed, as he set about pinning her legs with his own and pinning her hands down by her head again to be sure she couldn’t roll on top again, or even move really.

“I am,” Harper assured her, and then bent his head to flick the tip of his tongue repeatedly over one hardening nipple, before adding, “And we will eat. After.”

“After,” Drina agreed on a moan as he stopped teasing and finally closed his mouth over her nipple.

Drina glanced over the dark schoolyard they were hovering above and then to Casey Cottage on the corner across the street. She stared at the lit windows of the house, wishing with all her heart that the storm had continued, and they hadn’t had to return. It wasn’t because she didn’t want to see Stephanie, Mirabeau, and Tiny, or even Anders, but the closer they’d gotten to Port Henry, the more grim Harper had become. She very much feared the passion and laughter of the last twenty-four hours would soon be nothing more than a memory as Harper sank back into his guilt.

“Idiot man,” she muttered under her breath as the helicopter touched down, and then she sighed and moved along the seat toward the door when Harper shifted to open it. He got out first, and turned, raising his hands to help her out.

Drina hesitated, taking in his impersonal expression, then got out, her teeth grinding together when he took her elbow to usher her away from the helicopter.

Like she was an old crone rather than the life mate he’d made love to seven times in the last twenty-four hours, she thought bitterly. It was a noticeable difference from the affectionate way he’d slid his arm around her waist and tucked her to his side as they’d made their way to the helicopter in Toronto. She could actually feel the ghost of Jenny Harper slipping between them, cold and clammy.

Infuriated by that fact, Drina searched her mind for something to say or do to stop what was happening, but in the end she simply slid her booted foot to the side, tripping him. She then allowed herself to fall with him when he went crashing toward the ice. Harper did what she expected and caught her to his chest, turning as they fell, so that he took the brunt of the impact.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! My foot slipped on the ice,” Drina lied, raising herself up on his chest and shifting “unintentionally” on his groin to peer into his stunned face. “Are you all right?”

Harper struggled briefly to regain the wind that had been knocked out of him, and then nodded. “I’ll live.”

“Oh, my poor Harper. Thank you for saving me from the worst of the fall,” she said, and kissed him. It was no, “my hero” peck. It was an “I-ain’t-wearing-these-bloody-painful-FM-boots-for-nothing-buddy,” devouring of his mouth.

Much to Drina’s satisfaction, Harper only managed to hold out for a moment before his arms closed around her, and he took the lead. She knew she’d won this round when he rolled her in the snow and began to yank at the buttons of her coat to get at what was underneath as he ground his hips against her.

“All right, you two, cut it out, or I’ll have to arrest the pair of you for lewd behavior. There are kids watching, you know.”

Harper tore his mouth from Drina’s and glanced around to stare blankly at the man crossing the schoolyard toward them. “Teddy.”

“It looked like you took a hell of a spill, and I rushed over to see if you two were all right, but it’s pretty obvious you recovered quickly enough,” Teddy muttered, pausing beside them and offering Harper a hand.

Sighing, Harper accepted the assistance. Once on his feet, he turned back to help Drina up. She glanced around as she rose, noting that, as had happened when they’d left, there were faces peering out of nearly every window of the surrounding houses, and several of them were children.

So, her plan hadn’t been the best, Drina thought with a shrug. At least it had worked. If nothing else, she was now pretty sure that she just had to keep hammering at Harper’s walls with sex. As her life mate, he would find it hard to fight their attraction. So, every time the ghost of Jenny Harper slipped between them, and he threw up a wall, she would use sex to tear it down, Drina decided. She could handle that.

“Good Lord, girl!”

Drina blinked her thoughts away at that exclamation and glanced to Teddy Brunswick to see him eyeing her boots with dismay.

“It’s no wonder you can’t stay on your feet. Those boots are for looking at, not walking,” the chief of police muttered. Shaking his head, he took her arm as if afraid she wouldn’t be able to stay upright long on the heels, and then he urged her forward.

“They’re fine,” Harper said quietly, slipping his arm around her waist and drawing her against his side. It was a possessive act and one that sent a stream of warmth through her, as well as the hope that they would overcome his guilt and work things out after all.

Teddy chuckled. “Well hell, Stoyan, I’m not surprised you like them. If those aren’t a pair of FMs most red-blooded men would like to lick, I don’t know what are.”