Sleeping With the Entity (28 page)

“That would be a really dumb thing for me to do,” she muttered, turning away.

He was in front of her in the blink of an eye. “Why is that?”

“Because you wouldn’t have looked at me twice if you’d been able to compel me not to open my shop that first day we met. And you certainly wouldn’t have wanted to have sex with me if I wasn’t a hybrid.”

“I wanted you right away when you wore that prim sweater the first time I met you. I wanted you even when your stubbornness was driving me crazy.” Seeing her face, he added, “Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

“Because I’m not the kind of woman that men like you notice. You may have been curious about the fact that you couldn’t compel me but that’s all it was.”

“Why do you belittle yourself so?” He sounded like he’d just stepped out of the pages of one of her historical romances.

“I’m just being realistic.”

“Our reality is different from anyone else’s,” he said.

“I realize that.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She waved a hand at the badly rumpled bed. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

“Neither have I.”

She didn’t want to dissect their relationship. It was too early. And she had to take a shower and get dressed. By the time she did that Nick was waiting for her, wearing his customary black.

“Do you feel any different this morning?” she asked him. “I mean, your powers were supposed to increase after we … uh … did the deed.”

“I don’t think it’s an immediate thing.”

“Oh.” It had been for her. He only had to look at her the way he was doing now and she wanted to jump back into bed with him. “Um, was something supposed to change with me once I had sex with you?”

“Why? Do you feel different this morning?”

“Hell yes.”

He grinned at her. “Yeah, me too.”

“Do you think this merging between us somehow made us addicted to having sex with each other?”

“I sure hope so.”

“Me too.” She grinned back at him. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to fall for you.”

“You really should.”

“Maybe you should fall for me.”

“Maybe I already have,” he said.

Her heart actually skipped a beat or two. “Do not give me that look.”

“What look?”

“That
let’s have sex
look,” she said. “We are
not
going back to bed.”

Nick leaned close to whisper in her ear. “We could do it against the wall.”

“Or we could go downstairs and bake cupcakes. I have to open the shop.”

“I’m going with you,” he said.

“Why? Shouldn’t I be safe from Miles now?”

“I hope so,” he said. “But I’m not taking any chances.”

Daniella had been taking plenty of chances lately. Boatloads of them, in fact. First by opening her shop. Then by opening herself to Nick.

That realization was scary, so she focused on the rituals of her baking routine the minute she stepped into the shop. Xandra joined them a short while later. The sun had yet to rise but it was time to make the cupcakes.

Baking was therapeutic for Daniella. She didn’t remember exactly when she’d had that aha moment. Maybe she’d always known it.

Her mother, of course, had considered the baked goods she’d made as comfort for those in need of it. So while mixing the butter and sugar and flour was work, it was also a labor of love. Loving cupcakes was one thing. Loving Nick was something else entirely.

He was a vampire who lived forever. She was a hybrid who didn’t know what she was doing or who she was. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since her father had handed over her mother’s letter and yet so much had changed.

Nick remained focused on his smartphone as he had most mornings this past week when he was with her in the shop. She did sense a new tension emanating from him, however. Xandra headed to the front to ready the display case of cupcakes for the shop’s opening.

“What are you doing?’ Daniella asked Nick as he abandoned his phone in favor of getting close to her.

He paused, leaning even closer. She thought he was going to kiss her. Instead he devoured the red velvet cupcake she’d just started to ice. And he did so with super speed. He closed his eyes in apparent ecstasy … or maybe pain?

“Should you be doing that?” she whispered.

“I can eat,” he said in disbelief. “I can eat food.” He licked his lips. “Neville said it might be possible. Oh my God, I can eat. Steak. I want steak. And a pizza. Fish-and-chips. Ale and whiskey. Mexican food. I’ve never had Mexican food. Or a hot dog. Or a hamburger.”

Daniella stared at him. “The first food you could eat in two hundred years and you picked one of my cupcakes.” She blinked away tears. “That’s so sweet of you.” She paused as she realized he’d just devoured another five cupcakes in a second flat. “Hey, take it easy! All things in moderation.”

“That’s not what you said last night.”

She kissed the cream cheese icing from his mouth. She just had to. She couldn’t help herself.

“Be patient,” she told him before whispering, “You’ve got forever.”

*   *   *

Daniella was able to hold out until noon. Then she couldn’t take it anymore. Nick was eyeing her and the cupcakes with increasing hunger. She was afraid that he might devour both her and the food if she didn’t do something to satisfy his newfound appetite.

“Xandra, do you think that you and Lois can manage the shop today? She’ll be in shortly.”

“Sure,” Xandra said. “No problemo.”

Nick pulled Daniella outside.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Someplace where we can eat,” he said. “Which rules out my bar.”

“I think it might be safer to order in and stay in my apartment until we have this food thing figured out.”

He was on his smartphone an instant later. By the time they were upstairs he’d phoned in four delivery orders. One from the nearest sandwich shop, one from a Chinese place, one from a Mexican place, and one for a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.

He headed straight for her kitchen as soon as they entered her apartment. “Peanut butter.” He opened the lid and swiped his finger in it before sticking it in his mouth.

“It’s better if you drizzle chocolate syrup over it.” She held up the container.

He grabbed it and her and headed for the bedroom.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“It’ll be another twenty minutes until the food arrives, so I’m going to test your claim that it’s better with chocolate syrup over it.” He whipped off her Heavenly Cupcakes T-shirt and her bra and drizzled chocolate syrup on her bare breasts. Bending his head, he licked the chocolate from her skin. “Mmm, you’re right. What a clever cupcake maker you are, Ms. Smarty Knickers.”

He had that English-accent thing going on again, which she found to be incredibly sexy. A darkly erotic Mr. Darcy. Oh yeah.

She was so distracted that she didn’t even notice he’d peeled off her shoes and jeans and was now removing her knickers. But then he was doing all that with vamp hyper speed. He slowed down greatly when he administered the chocolate syrup to the rest of her body, layering the most on her breasts with creative swirls. He lowered her onto the bed.

“These are the most perfect cupcakes in the world,” he murmured huskily, before taking her into his mouth and sucking the sweetness from her. She was burning with pleasure when he moved on to her navel and below. A lick, a nibble, and she was a goner. She came with rolling waves of ecstasy.

He came into her, sliding his way home before almost withdrawing, only to thrust back in. The ensuing friction was deliciously arousing. Daniella didn’t think it was humanly possible to have as many orgasms as she’d had in the past twelve hours—but then she wasn’t all human. She was part druid. Maybe they had super sex lives. She knew she sure was right now.

By the time the banquet started arriving, they were dressed and back in the living room. Daniella had to smile at the way Nick admired every little thing set out for him to sample—from the pot stickers to the cheese on the deep-dish pizza. He paced himself, trying some of everything rather than gorging on any one item. He sampled the burritos and tacos last.

“Today and tomorrow are the Days of the Dead in Mexico,” he noted. “Días de los Muertos. A time when family and friends remember their loved ones who have died. I was down there one year for the event.”

“Did you fly?” she asked.

“Yes. I prefer first class to coach.”

“I meant without a plane. Can you fly without a plane?”

He lifted an eyebrow in one of his classic moves. “You must have mistaken me for Superman.”

“After your performance last night and today, I’d say that
super
is an accurate description.”

They spent the rest of the day and most of the night exploring new foods and new moves with equal amounts of supreme gastronomical and sexual satisfaction.

*   *   *

Nick walked into the Vamp Cave early the next morning to find Pat and Bruce grinning at him. He’d left Daniella at her cupcake shop, guarded by Lois.

“We were starting to think that we’d never see you again,” Pat said. “Oh, wait, we did see you. Devouring cupcakes yesterday morning. So I guess Neville was right about the food thing, huh?”

“There’s only one thing I want to know,” Bruce said. “Was it good?” He deliberately waited a beat before adding, “I mean the food, not the sex.”

“I can tell by the look on Nick’s face that both were good,” Pat said, slapping him on the back.

Nick turned his attention the Neville, who wiped the grin off his face the instant he realized Nick was glaring at him. “I need to know how Miles hacked into Daniella’s laptop the other night,” Nick said. “She saw and heard him.”

Neville nodded. “He got into her Skype account. It’s been corrected.”

“It never should have happened in the first place.” Nick’s voice reflected his anger as he gripped the back of a steel chair, bending it without even realizing what he was doing.

“Agreed,” Pat said, taking the chair away. “It appears your powers have been increased as predicted. At least your strength has increased. What about other abilities?”

Nick didn’t know if his sexual abilities had been improved or if it was just Daniella that did it to him. And she did it to him big-time over and over again. He couldn’t wait to get back to her. “We’ll just have to wait and see what develops.”

*   *   *

Daniella was preparing to decorate a special order of cupcakes for a baby shower when Lois ran into the back room. “You’re in danger. We must leave right now.” She yanked Daniella to the back door, using vampire strength for the first time.

“What about Xandra?”

“They’re not after her. They’re after you, and there’s no time to explain.”

They ran past the back entrances to Nick’s bar and grill as well as Pat’s Tats and the Happy Times Dental Clinic along the alley to Tanya’s Tanning Salon.

“This way,” Lois said. She tugged on the corner of a storage rack, opening a secret doorway that led down a small spiral staircase.

“What’s going on?” Tanya demanded as she joined them.

“Miles is after Daniella.”

“So you didn’t have sex with Nick?” Tanya asked Daniella.

“No time,” Lois gasped. “Miles is coming!”

“Then I’m coming with you two,” Tanya said, following quickly behind them before slamming shut the door to her salon. “I’m not staying behind with a pissed-off Miles the Mustache.”

The lighting on the stairway was dim, barely enough to keep Daniella’s fear of the dark at bay. “Where are we going?”

“To the tunnels,” Lois said.

Daniella didn’t like the sound of that.

“Don’t be afraid.” Lois used her maternal voice. “The tunnels were built during the Prohibition by bootleggers wanting to move their product.”

“Illegal booze,” Tanya inserted.

“Congress was foolish to pass a bill prohibiting the consumption of alcohol,” Lois said.

“And Congress continues to be foolish at times,” Daniella said. Were vampires political? She didn’t want to get them riled up or anything. She already had enough vamps mad at her.

They reached the bottom of the staircase and quickly started moving. The place was like a maze. The tunnel had a lightbulb every ten feet or so, but there were too many shadows for Daniella to feel comfortable.

She took a deep breath, which ended in a gasp as even that pitiful amount of illumination abruptly disappeared, plunging them into utter darkness and Daniella into total panic.

Chapter Twenty-two

“Where’s Daniella?” Nick growled, staring at the screen displaying the back of the cupcake shop. Pat had asked him to review some damn security report for a second and the next thing he knew Daniella was gone and Miles had invaded Vamptown.

“Daniella is safe,” Neville said. “She’s with Lois.”

“And Tanya,” Bruce added.

“Lois will look after Daniella,” Neville said.

“Where are they now?” Nick said.

“In the tunnels.” Neville switched screens.

“Why is it pitch dark down there?” Nick demanded.

An instant later the lights in the Vamp Cave blinked out along with all the high-tech equipment.

“The backup generator will kick on,” Neville said.

“When?”

“It should already be on,” Neville admitted. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Where’s Miles right now? He’s nearby.” Nick’s voice was grim.

“I don’t know.” Neville was frantically pounding on various keyboards and touch screens to no avail.

Nick closed his eyes and sniffed, concentrating all his increased abilities on locating Miles. He was close but not in the building. Not yet.

Vampires had excellent night vision, so it wasn’t the darkness of the Vamp Cave that disturbed Nick. It was the fact that with their security system and its multiple backups disabled, they had to fall back on their inherent skills.

“Time to go old school,” he said curtly.

Nick couldn’t afford to think about the fact that Daniella, who was terrified of the dark, was down in the tunnels. At least she wasn’t alone. She had Lois with her. Tanya might not be any comfort, but Lois would.