The Way You Bite(10)
She’d detected mental vibrations from him. Maybe it’d been imagination only. Yet, for a brief moment, she’d been mesmerized with longing to drown in his gaze. To keep staring.
Maybe Roman was right. She should turn around. The instinct was so strong that she almost put the car in reverse.
This was her half-sister’s celebration. The event wasn’t about Vee. She could handle her father…unless he was angry. Dominic should be riding on a serious high tonight after brokering this marriage, which united him with the aristocratic families in Canada.
She opened her handbag and pulled out the emerald engagement ring, sliding it onto her ring finger. Showtime.
She rolled forward slowly until the unwelcoming Scarpa estate gate loomed ahead. At least eight guards dressed in standard issue black camos stepped toward her car. A burly guard stooped to her level, allowing his blond flattop to touch the top of the driver’s side window.
“Invitation, please,” he requested.
“It’s me. I’m running late.” Vee forced a smile. She put her left handle on the sill, allowing the emerald to sparkle in the ambient light. This particular vamp gate guard had the IQ of an onion and the bulky body of an anabolic steroid junky. Even vamps could dope.
The burly troglodyte flashed fang and held out an expectant hand. “You look nice tonight, my lady. But I have orders. Security is tight tonight.” He leered down her dress. Hello tittays, he thought.
“I don’t have the invitation.” Vee hid her revulsion at the guard’s fantasized sex-a-thon with him doing things to her breasts that involved biting and pumping.
“Then I’ll have to call up to the house to get an ‘okay’ to let you in.”
“I’m the bride’s sister. Do you think I’m a werewolf wearing a Vee-suit or something?”
“We’re not supposed to let anyone in without an invite tonight. It’s not like you’re a regular here.”
“Open the gate, or I’m driving into it. You can explain that to my father and fiancé. I know you want to have a one-on-one with Ambrose DiFalco.”
He grumbled as he stepped away from the car, but the electrified iron monstrosity started its slow mechanical grind to open.
She executed a poor parallel between two cars at the end of the long triple-parked line around the circular drive. Before she got out, she ate two Hershey’s Kisses.
Outside her car, she steeled herself. She opened her purse for one more fortifying Kiss. The October air remained unseasonably warm and sticky. A delicate breeze whistled through the trees, sending more than a few dead leaves airborne.
The moon mesmerized her—not quite full, but luminous and mysterious. Something deep in her gut shifted. A wild urge to run sent her heart into a gallop. She shook her head at the anomalous instinct and frowned at the moon. Its glow was the same hue as Lexan’s eyes. A woman could lose herself in that pale hue, preferably while lying on his naked tattooed chest. Okay, that thought needed to go into the locked vault of don’t-ever-think-that-again.
He was a wolf. Since birth, she’d been taught wolves were savages who’d viciously dismembered her mother when Vee had been barely two months old. Dominic had annihilated the one who supposedly killed her mother and then waged this never-ending war. She should want to plan Lexan’s execution, but the war’s instigating event reeked of a setup.
Neither Lexan nor Eric had acted like the barbarian monsters she’d been led to expect. Instead, they’d been civilized but wary, like all werewolves she’d encountered.
Lexan fascinated her. Maybe it was his insane good looks or that he was older than any being she’d ever met. A crush was one thing, but this felt far more powerful than a giggly teenager infatuation. Were he vampire, Ambrose might even encourage her into an affair to put them on even ground, but only after their marriage. Even then, Ambrose wouldn’t do that until she produced an heir. Pregnancy meant she’d need to actually have sex. With Ambrose. She shuddered with revulsion.
Her mind funneled pictures of Lexan back into her mind, to calm her, as if sex with him was right.
Get over him. A beautiful veneer rarely housed a worthwhile soul. Both vamps and wolves specialized in gorgeous packaging. Well, except her.
Lexan wasn’t done with her. The thought simultaneously unnerved and excited her, even if he did plan to blackmail her into something. She’d probably do whatever he requested—and not because she’d be happy to hop into bed with him. Wolves made her uneasy, but Dominic’s reaction to the news she’d assisted wolves more than once in the not-so-distant past petrified her. She could probably talk her way out of the incident tonight, at least she hoped.
No more thinking about King Werewolf. Others at this party had the rare gift of mind reading. She couldn’t get caught focusing on the glorious abs of one’s perceived worst enemy, even if it was a worthy vision.
Inside the foyer of the plantation-style mansion, a member of the waitstaff pointed her toward the great hall, as if she didn’t know the location of the reception based on the noise level. Countless tables decorated with expensive china and crystal accommodated the hundred or so guests. The toasts to the married couple had already commenced. She entered just as someone relayed a cheek-flaming misadventure of a time when her sister, Brooke, had a crush on a human in high school. Brooke accidentally killed the kid by taking too much blood while they made out in the car. Only a roomful of vamps would find that funny.