Prince Vampire (2 page)

Chapter Two

“Oh. My. God. It’s him. The prince, er, cover model.” Aureliann nearly choked on the french fry in her mouth. This was the man she had been talking about only yesterday with Zoe. The bag dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers, sending french fries scattering everywhere as she watched the man walk into the laundromat. She swallowed hard. Who would have thought it? A cover model coming in to wash his skivvies on an early Sunday morning.
To think if I had not decided to do the laundry today I would have missed this.

What the hell was he doing in a laundromat let alone one in a strip mall in the western suburbs of Brisbane on a Saturday afternoon? It was hardly a glamorous place.
Damn he looked good
. Tall, wild and sexy. Oh and that hair. Long and sleek and tied back with what looked like a leather thong. Aureliann looked down at the cover of
The Vampire’s Kiss
on the seat beside her. She carried it everywhere, even to do the laundry. Yeah that was Prince Valdemar all right. Her eyes snapped open wide as he headed in her direction.
Holy crap.
He was walking straight toward her. Her whole body tensed in shock and anticipation. Look in lust or pretend not to notice? She had dreamed so many dreams of this man that she no longer knew what reality was.
Please don’t let me dribble.

“Hello.”

Aureliann closed her eyes for a moment and savored that warm, smooth chocolate voice. She felt an instant wetness between her legs in response to that one word.
I just know I will have an orgasm if he speaks a whole sentence.
When she looked back into his eyes, the feeling of intense attraction made her want to throw herself against his body and never let go.

“I…er, um, don’t have change for the machines.” Realistically Aureliann knew that was the only reason he would approach her. She was no raving beauty. Only a raving lunatic in love with an imaginary man. Or maybe not so imaginary. She shook her head.
Snap out of it. He’s a guy who posed for a photo shoot for money.
He is not Prince Valdemar.
Aureliann licked her lips, hoping no drool was visible. Zoe was right. She needed a nice, hard fuck to snap her out of her obsession with Prince Valdemar. Despite the beauty of this man, he wasn’t it. Aureliann knew sex with him would ruin her for other men.

He smiled. “I don’t want change.”

Be still my heart.
“Oh?” Aureliann felt like she was drowning under that smile. She could feel the interested gaze of the other laundromat patrons on them. This beat watching their washing tumbling in the suds and doing crossword puzzles as they waited.

“I want you.” He held out his hand toward her.

Aureliann made an unattractive, tortured, gagging sound of disbelief. “You want what?” The surprise of his words made her drop her purse to the floor. He actually sounded like he meant it. Half of her wanted to scream hallelujah and the other half told her to snap out of it. Men like him did not pursue women like her. His type preferred bony-assed, stick-thin models, not women with love handles and large asses.

He bent down and picked her purse up. “You heard me.” He handed it to her.

When his hand touched hers, Aureliann felt a jolt of awareness shoot through her.
Oh boy, oh boy.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I am Prince Valdemar and I have crossed dimensions to be with you.”

Aureliann snorted. “Of course you have.”

Although he had only glimpsed her in his dreams, Aureliann was everything Valdemar knew she would be. The delightful shape of her mouth made him want to pull her into his arms and kiss her until they were both breathless. Valdemar was prepared for the voluptuous redhead’s surprise. He knew this first meeting would not be easy yet even with her cynicism, he saw recognition mixed with disbelief in her eyes.

Aureliann held up the book. “Is this a case of life imitating art? Do you pick up women this way?” Her voice was full of sarcasm. “’Cause I’m not that desperate.”

Valdemar smiled. He would have expected no less than this woman to challenge him. Thomas’ words came back to him.
Go now but remember they are not like us. She will not understand at first. She will most likely try to resist you.
That was okay. Valdemar had waited forever for this moment and he would put up with whatever suspicion and confusion he had to in order to be with Aureliann.

Uncertainty hovered in her blue eyes.
At least I have her full attention.
How many other women would have called him crazy and walked away? Many. Only those with no scruples would have accepted him purely on the invitation extended. Valdemar did not want one of those women.
I want my true love. I want Aureliann.
“I don’t play games with women and I am using ‘art’ as you call it for my own means.”

“Huh?”

“The book was written to find my true love.” Valdemar knew this buxom beauty was it. The rapid rise and fall of her full breasts in the simple blue t-shirt and the shape of her lush thighs in those jeans made his cock harden in excitement. He was not the sort of man who liked to rush a woman. Normally he liked to seduce and tease. However Valdemar knew his control was perilously close to being lost after so long a search for this woman.
I must bond with her. I must make her mine.
Every fiber of his being longed for such completion.

Aureliann tapped the book to her head as realization dawned in her eyes. “Oh I get it. Zoe sent you, didn’t she?”

“I do not know a Zoe.” Valdemar took the book from her, placing it on the seat beside her. He wanted to hold both her hands. He could feel the shiver that ran through her body. She was as excited as he was.

“Damn you’re good. I actually want to believe you are Prince Valdemar.”

“I am.” Valdemar pulled her to her feet. “Come with me.” He wanted to be with her somewhere quiet and romantic. He wanted to concentrate totally on making love to this woman. The first experience was always the most memorable.

“Oh whoa.” Aureliann tried to pull her hands away. “While it’s been great to meet you, ‘Prince’, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Then it must be here.” There was no other choice. They had to bond immediately or everything he knew and loved would perish, including Aureliann because she was a part of him, as he was her, whether she accepted it or not.
This is not where I wanted to meet or how I wanted our first time to be. But I must make do.
Valdemar smiled to himself.
My true love had to be an independent, cynical woman.
But I would want no less.
He looked around the dingy surroundings. There were too many people watching and he would never shame his woman by taking her in front of others. He waved his free hand and all but the two of them disappeared.

Aureliann’s eyes goggled at the suddenly empty room. She stood up and spun around. There was no one but them in the laundromat. It was empty. The washing machines and dryers still chugged, the only evidence that there had been anyone there at all.

“What the fuck?” She closed her eyes and opened them again quickly. “Where is everyone? What the hell is going on here?” One minute she was sitting there regretting not separating her colors from the whites before putting them in the wash and the next the man of her dreams had walked into her life and made everyone vanish.
Have I inhaled too much soap powder?

“They are not important, lovely one, only we are.”

Lovely one? “We”?

Valdemar pulled her against his body. “Oh!” She gasped as the heat from his body seeped into hers.
Delicious.
Aureliann inhaled the spicy smell of him and wondered if he would taste the same. Huh?
What
the hell am I doing? I don’t know this man.

“Let go.” The words sounded weak to her but who could think when this man was all hot and hard and his hands had slid down to cup her ass. She felt like she was dissolving against him as her body naturally molded itself against his. Was he really Prince Valdemar? How could that be? The whole making-people-disappear thing was pretty impressive though. That was not something you saw every day. And what if he was a storybook hero come to life? Should she be carrying on this way with a man, even a fantasy one, she didn’t know? Or did reading a book seven times make a relationship?
Crap, what that hell am I thinking?
Dreams did not come true.

“Um, who are you?”

The sweet smile of understanding he gave Aureliann made her body sag against his.

“I am your prince. I am the man you called to each night. I heard you speak the words from your own sweet lips.”

Aureliann pushed her hands against his chest. That would be right. He was a peeping tom cum cover model.
Typical I’d get one of them
. He probably thought she was desperate, and maybe she was a little, but she wasn’t easy.

“You’ve been standing outside my window?” She knew she talked in her sleep and wondered what else she had blurted out.

Valdemar shook his head in bemusement. “No, I have been in my castle, lovely.”

His castle. The man knew the book. She had to give him that. It was smart to cater to a woman’s fantasies. Aureliann almost wanted to believe him. The making-people-disappear thing was hard to dismiss. Time for a test. If he was playing a part, despite the whole vanishing people thing, she was going to catch him out. No one knew
The Vampire’s Kiss
better than she did. No one. She had lived that book.

“That would be your castle in—”

“In Serawych,” Valdemar responded as he started moving her backward.

Aureliann’s back hit the long communal bench that was used for folding clean clothes. “With?”

He smiled. “With Thomas, my mentor.”

Even though that was an easy question, a cold shiver ran down her spine. This, whatever it was with this man, felt so right it was freaky.

“And your cousin?”

“Victor.”

Aureliann saw the sudden pain in his eyes. That was not fake. It was genuine and heartfelt. “Can’t you talk to him and somehow—”
Oh crap, what am I saying?
She wanted to reunite cousins who did not exist. Yet she was falling for this and him and for the life of her she didn’t want to stop the fall.

He sighed. “My cousin is beyond talk.” Valdemar lifted one hand and caressed her face. “I need you, Aureliann.”

She gasped in surprise. “How do you know my name?” The rest he could have gotten from the pages of the book but her name?

“I know you as I know my own heart.”

“Damn you’re good.” He was saying every single thing she had wanted the storybook Prince Valdemar to say to her. She was feeling everything she longed to feel. Freaky stranger or fantasy becoming real? “I want to believe you
.
”
I want you to be real.

“I am Prince Valdemar. I do not lie.” His eyes locked with hers, his words strong and resolute.

Aureliann needed more proof. It was not every day that a stranger walked into your life and told you he was the hero from your favorite book.

“Where is the royal tattoo?” Only a real
The Vampire’s Kiss
fanatic or Prince Valdemar would know that. It was a stylized gothic ankh symbol that meant eternal life. It was on his body in a certain place that she had often fantasized seeing.

Valdemar smiled. “On my ass. Do you wanna see?” His hands left hers and dropped to unbuckle his belt.

Yes please.

“No.” It could have been a lucky guess and yet in her heart she suspected it wasn’t. There was something that rang too true about this man. She licked her lips at the hot man with his buckle undone. It would take so little to pull those trousers off his lean hips and…
whoa! Snap out of it, woman.
And yet it was hard to because this man was exactly as she imagined Prince Valdemar to be. “Fangs. Where are they?” She was well aware of the answer to that. Was he? “And it’s daylight. Everyone knows vampires can’t handle the sun.”

He laughed. “You and I both know that my fangs only appear when I want them to and daylight does not affect me. Nice try to catch me out, lovely.” Valdemar reached out and pulled her back against him. “Don’t fight what is meant to be.” His hands caressed her hips.

Her loins rubbed slowly against his. This was everything she wanted but it had to be too good to be true. “Who are you?”
I want to believe in you.

“I am your vampire prince.”

Before Aureliann had time to say anything further he kissed her and whatever she was thinking of saying disappeared from her mind with that first taste of his mouth on hers. It was everything she craved. Soft, firm yet passionate. She could not help but wrap her arms around his body and pull herself closer for more. Aureliann had the overriding need to feel every part of his body against hers.
Hmm, lovely indeed.
The vampire’s kiss was just as she imagined.

Valdemar’s mouth left her lips. “I would have preferred somewhere more romantic than here.”

“Huh?” Aureliann murmured incoherently. She no longer had any idea where she was other than she was with him and that was all that mattered. “For what?”

“To make love to you, lovely.” Valdemar grinned at the look on her face. “I like how your mouth drops open in surprise like that.” He took advantage of that and kissed her again.

Aureliann had been kissed before and it had been nice. This was way beyond nice. This was a hot, sexy duel of mouth and tongues with desire and need racing through bodies that were destined to unite.

“This is crazy,” she panted as she broke off the kiss. Her whole body was trembling.

“No, it’s not.” Valdemar ran his finger along her swollen lips. “I need you as you need me. We must be together. You feel that as I do.” His mouth descended once more on hers with a hungry burst of kisses. “I am the only man who will ever love you.”

As lines went, it was ten out of ten and exactly what she longed to hear. He looked like Prince Valdemar. He spoke the words as Valdemar did in the book.
But am I losing my mind?

“You need me, Aureliann.”

And he was right. That was the only thing she could think of.
I have to be with this man.
There was no way it could be otherwise. Was he Prince Valdemar stepping from the pages of
The Vampire’s Kiss
? Her heart and mind were one. Yes. Was she insane? Most probably.