Unafraid (5 page)

Drying himself with a scratchy towel, Griffin
took the six steps that took him from the bathroom to her bed and
stretched out to watch her cook. Good Lord, he had to get away from
her. She stood at the tiny stove in a thong and a cut-off t-shirt
that did nothing to cover the rounded underside of her full breast.
Her long hair hung in a wave down her back. It was still damp from
her shower. Griffin hardened again and groaned when she bent to
retrieve a dropped fork from the floor. The motion presented him
with an exquisite view of her ass and the nearly bare treasure of
her womanhood. He wanted to lick and nibble and fill her to
overflowing all over again. The urge to replace the scent of sex
and satisfaction she had removed in the shower was
overwhelming.

His heavy breathing must have gotten her
attention. She looked at him over her should with a coy smile and
asked, “How do you like your eggs, Griffin?”

* * *

“Griffin, where the hell have you been?” A
familiar and usually very welcomed voice snapped at him from the
doorway of his office. He dreaded this confrontation. Delphina had
finally grown tired of him avoiding her calls and came to hunt him
down. He’d stood her up on Saturday. Her repeated calls were part
of the reason his phone had died over the weekend. She would want
answers he didn’t care to give.

He was so sick of explaining his whereabouts.
It was bad enough his mother had grilled him for an hour before
angrily conceding that he was a grown man that didn’t owe her an
explanation. If he wanted to take off for a solitary weekend that
was his right. His father seemed to understand without a word that
he had been out carousing and didn’t care to tell his parents that
he’d been sowing some wild oats.

“If you must go off the grid, please be kind
enough to inform me of your intentions before you disappear. Your
mother was a pain in my ass all weekend. She would’ve had the
Enclave on high alert if I hadn’t stopped her. I understand your
need to browse the available females now before the time of your
bonding comes. Just try to keep me in the loop, son,” his father
had requested after his mother stomped out of his condo.

Griffin would have something to say to the
security staff in the building. Returning home to find his parents
camped out in his living room was not a welcome experience. There
was no excuse for the breach of his privacy or the invasion of his
home. No one should be given the keys to his condo, not even his
parents.

His best friend, Mason, had even bitched
about his disappearance. It seemed his uncharacteristic vanishing
act had caused quite a stir. Griffin wished he could talk to Mason
about his weekend, but Mason wouldn’t understand his attraction to
Tessa. Just like Griffin, Mason had been raised to think of the
human race as inferior. They were both future Councilmen and sons
of the current leaders of the Vampire Nation. Mason was very
recently blood bonded to a female of his parents choosing, just
like Griffin would be in the next few years. So Mason was all about
family honor and doing their duty to the Nation. Griffin’s
obsession with a human, who had knowledge of their people and
therefore the power to expose them all to the humans, would be
unforgivable.

He had been reminding himself of the fact
that she wasn’t worthy of his constant thoughts for the last two
days, but the need to seek out not only her bed, but her company,
would not go away. He dreamt of her nightly and woke hard and
frustrated, gasping her name. Her sweet scent of vanilla clung to
the shirt he had worn to her place and for some psychotic reason he
couldn’t make himself toss it in the hamper with the other dirty
clothes. All of these things made him feel an unwanted measure of
guilt when he looked up into Delphina’s lovely chocolate brown
eyes. She was an old friend that wanted more than he was able to
give her. They enjoyed each other’s company and very frequently
each other’s beds.

“Good afternoon, Dellie. To what do owe this
unexpected visit?” He was about to say ‘unexpected pleasure’ but
Griffin hated to lie. As much as he cared for Delphina, he took no
pleasure in seeing her today.

“Don’t you dare Dellie me, Griffin Vaughn!
You know damn well why I’m here.” She stepped into the room and
shut the door. “You stood me up. You’ve been ignoring my calls. I
was worried sick after the kidnapping a few years ago that someone
had dragged you off, never to be seen again. I had to call Mason to
find out that you’re still alive.” Sincere distress and worry for
him bled into her angry rant.

Griffin felt another stab of guilt for
disregarding her feelings, but he did not need the reminder of the
loss of his sister, Leann, to suicide after her mate had been
murdered by a rogue vampire several years past. Leann and Mason’s
older brother, David, had fallen in love and in secret. Both David
and Leann already had future mates chosen by their parents for the
wealth and connections the union would bring to each other. No one
knew of the secret mating until David had been murdered and Leann
took her own life out of sorrow and longing to be with the mate she
would never see again.

Both families suffered the loss of a child.
Both families found a way to blame the other for the loss instead
of venting their anger toward the mysterious rogue who had
disappeared as quickly as he had arrived. Without a trace, he was
gone. The Vaughn and Deidrick families were left with no one to
punish for the crimes so they took it out on each other. Mason and
Griffin refused to take part in the silent war. They had grown up
together and neither was willing to give up their friendship.
Neither family would dare publically accuse the other of wrong
doing due to their respective positions on the Council, but the
relationship would never be the same.

Griffin understood Delphina’s frustration,
but bringing up his sister, even indirectly, was a low blow.
“Delphina, I’m working. This isn’t the time or the place for this
discussion.”

“Is this how it ends then, Griffin? One day
we’re together and happy, and the next you toss me aside like an
old newspaper you have no use for?” She sniffled and tears filled
her eyes. Griffin disagreed with her statement that they had ever
been ‘together’ in the way she implied.

Delphina was a beautiful woman with soulful
brown eyes and long, shiny, auburn tresses. Her long, lean body and
perfectly portioned breasts were the stuff men dream about. Griffin
had told her many times to move on and find a male who could give
her the bond she deserved, if not the love she wanted, but she
refused. She had been convenient for him until now, so he hadn’t
argued over much.

Griffin made his way around his desk and
wrapped Delphina up in a comforting hug. He kissed the top of her
head, feeling as if he were holding a cherished friend instead of
the lover he had enjoyed so many times. No longer did her closeness
fire his blood or make him hard and ready. He had always loved her
height because he didn’t have to bend in half to kiss her but now
he craved a petite frame that made him feel an overwhelming urge to
claim and protect what was his. The floral perfume she always wore
now seemed overpowering compared to the natural vanilla fragrance
that had been haunting his dreams. Delphina was right. This was the
end of their longstanding affair.

“I’m sorry, Dellie. I never meant to hurt
you. I’ve been telling you to move on for a long time. I didn’t
intend for things to end this way, but this relationship has run
its course. The time has come to let it go.” She stiffened in his
arms and Griffin prepared for a torrent of tears. When she raised
her face to look at him, the anger flashing in her eyes surprised
him.

“Who is it, Griffin? Did your parents finally
force that bitch on you? What is her name again, Sarah? Is that
what this is about? I know you will be bonded but that doesn’t mean
we can’t be together until that days comes.” She practically
growled.

“This has nothing to do with Sarah. In fact I
haven’t even seen her in a couple of years. She’s too young to be
bonded just yet.” Now that he thought about it, Sarah had to be
near twenty. That was plenty old enough for his people. She wasn’t
much younger than Tessa.

“Then who is it? Who are you screwing? You
must have someone else. I’m not stupid, Griffin. I know you
wouldn’t get rid of a sure thing if you didn’t already have a
replacement. Tell me about my competition.” Delphina was right in
his face and she looked ready to beat the name out of him. This was
a side of Delphina he had never seen before and frankly he never
cared to see again. She had always been so accommodating and eager
to please. Now he wondered if he had been wrong about her sweet
nature. Was it possible she was just another social climber after
the prestige a connection to him or his family would bring? Had he
been so wrong about her all this time? Her suddenly ceasing tears
and the degree of calculation on her face told him he had indeed
been fooled. Griffin set her away from his body and went to open
the door.

“I’m not going to argue with you, Delphina.
I’m sorry for not taking your calls and I wish things could have
been different between us, but here we are, at the end.” Griffin
opened the door and stepped back to allow her to exit. Delphina
walked to him with a bit too much sway in her hips, grabbing the
lapels of his suit jacket and yanking him down for a hard kiss. He
didn’t shove her away but neither did he grant her entrance to his
mouth. He stood still until she realized he would not participate
in the forced kiss.

“This isn’t over, Griffin. I have put up with
your alley cat ways and loved you for too long to let you just walk
away. I want you. We can find a way to get you out of that damned
arranged union. I know you think you’re protecting me by ending it
now, rather than waiting until we are forced apart. I don’t need
your protection, Griffin. We’ll get through this together,” she
told him with a wide, affectionate and slightly deranged smile. Who
the hell was this woman and what had she done with his friend,
Dellie?

“Don’t forget you agreed to escort me to the
gala this Saturday. It’s your family’s turn to host and your mother
is already expecting me. Don’t force me to make a scene at such a
public venue. You may pick me up at seven-thirty. See you then.”
She kissed him again and straightened his lapels before strolling
out the door with a pleased grin.

Days later…

Griffin stood in the hall outside of Tessa’s
little studio apartment trying to find the courage to knock on her
door. Her scent lingered in the hall and teased him with the
memories of how sweet she tasted all over. The last week had been
pure torture. He tried to forget her and carry on with work and his
family duties but nothing he did helped relieve the longing to go
to her. He had even resorted to feeding from an inebriated human
before he picked Delphina up for the annual gala. The metabolism of
vampires was too high to allow them to get drunk by consuming
alcohol, but if they fed on a drunk human, they could find mindless
oblivion for a time. Once the human body processed the alcohol and
it passed into their blood stream it was ready for vampire
consumption.

This practice was of course frowned upon
because it made a vampire just as careless as it did humans.
Compared to allowing a wayward human to roam the earth with
intimate knowledge of the Vampire Nation, getting drunk was minor.
It hadn’t helped at all. He believed his drunken state had actually
exacerbated his longing for Tessa.

He had no idea how he was going to keep Tessa
away from his family’s notice and out of the public eye, but he was
damn well going to try. After days of debating the merits of
returning to wipe her memory clean of all knowledge of his kind,
along with the memories of the time she spent in his arms, Griffin
knew he couldn’t do it. Nor could he report her to the Council to
deal with for him. He planned to enthrall her into telling him
exactly where she had gotten her information. If what she said was
true and it had all come from dreams, then erasing her memory would
do no good. She could just have another dream and bring it all
back. That was the flimsy excuse he was giving himself today. The
truth was he didn’t want to lose her. He had to give in to this
crazy impulse to possess her.

Finally, he raised a fist and knocked on her
door. A moment later Tessa opened the door wearing a completely
blank expression. She looked tired and just as miserable he did,
but beautiful in a tank top and yoga pants. It shouldn’t gladden
his heart that she seemed to be just as miserable as he was but it
did. She blinked at him a few times.

“No,” she said with a sad little shake of her
beautiful blond head, and shut the door in his face.

What the hell? Had she just dismissed him? Oh
no. Didn’t she know who he was? Never in his life had he been
dismissed. He had been pining for her for days. He would not be
ignored like an unwanted salesman standing on her doorstep! He
knocked again, more forcefully this time.

“Tessa, open the door. We need to talk,” he
told her firmly.

“Go away, Griffin. The time for talk came and
went days ago,” she said flatly.

So that was it. He’d hurt her with his
silence. Again, he was pleased to know he hadn’t been the only one
suffering for the past week.

“Open the door now, Tessa,” he demanded with
just a bit of mental compulsion thrown for good measure. He would
speak to her even if he had to enthrall her to open the door.

“Kiss my lily white ass. I have nothing to
say to you. Go away, Griffin.” That bit about her ass might have
been interesting if she hadn’t said in such a flat monotone. He
understood that she was angry with him, but he would quickly get
her past the hurt.