Vamps: Human and Paranormal (19 page)

“I was,” Lucy said in a flat tone.  Gabriel turned his head enough to flash Lucy a quizzical smile, and there was some heat in his gaze. 

“Oh,” Gram said as she shook her head.  Obviously trying to figure out why Lucy had changed her clothes was more than she was up for.  She turned and beamed a wide, brilliant smile at Gabriel. 

“Now stop washing those dishes.  Dinner’s ready to be served.”  She strained the gravy she’d been mixing into a gravy boat and held it out to Gabriel.  “If you want to kelp, take this out for me and place it on the dining room table.  There are hot pads already down.  Just put it on top of one.” 

Gabriel dried his hands on a dishtowel then took the gravy boat out of Lillian’s hands, walking off to the dining room.

“What a nice young man.”  Lucy stood there in stunned silence as she watched her grandmother fan herself with a small cutting board.  She was flushed and looked about ten years younger. 

“Oh my god…Gram!”

“What?” Lillian said, giving Lucy a surprised glance at her outburst, then turning her attentions back the way Gabriel had left.

“You’re not seriously drooling over my…my…”—well, what exactly was he?—“my fake fiancé?”

Gram scoffed, but she was still fanning herself.  “I’m old, not dead.”

“This evening could not be more disturbing.”  Lucy took a glass from the cupboard then poured herself some pink lemonade from the fridge. 

“So you’re disturbed by him.”  It wasn’t a question.  “Is it him, or
what
he is?”

“You’re not helping.”  Lucy put the cold glass to her forehead and breathed.  She just needed a minute to think.

“I could send him to the store two blocks over for some milk.  That would take him at least five, ten minutes.”  She was just a little too pleased with herself.

Lucy shot her a scathing look.  “I’m fine.  He can stay.  And you can quit with the interrogation.”

Gram just grinned.  That grin said way too many things, in Lucy’s opinion. 

Dinner was great.  Gram had outdone herself: braised beef roast, glazed carrots, string beans, garlic mashed potatoes made from scratch, and fresh baked rolls.  Lucy noticed that Gabriel had two helpings of everything.  She could tell from her grandmother’s expression that that pleased her plenty.

Conversation was surprisingly light.  Just about the weather, some more about Four Corner’s
suddenly fascinating
history, and a couple questions about where his family came from originally:  Both his parent’s families came from Romania, having immigrated to the west two generations before Gabriel was born.

Lucy thought about the little story Jonas Enoch had told her about how he and Gabriel’s mother had fallen in love.  She couldn’t imagine what their parents were like.  She just couldn’t picture it.  Vivian Enoch had seemed like she was born the way she was—fully formed and cold as ice.

Gram had Lucy help her clear the dinner plates, insisting Gabriel remain seated while they brought out coffee and dessert—a magnificent chocolate-chocolate cake.  It wasn’t until they’d finished eating the last bites of their desserts that Gram dropped all pretenses and dropped the other shoe, so to speak.

“So wolf,” Gabriel looked up from his coffee and met Gram’s gaze.  They both looked very serious.  Lucy was just about to interrupt when her grandmother continued.  “How far, exactly, are you prepared to go with this?”

Gabriel almost smiled, tilting his head as he studied Lucy’s grandmother.

“I see you’re committed to this ruse—pulling the wool over your family’s eyes—just so you can be with your vampire lover.”  She sat forward in her chair just enough that Lucy thought she was going to throw something.  “What I’m wondering is, are you just as committed to keeping my granddaughter safe?”

Gabriel’s brown eyes softened.  “I will let nothing and no one hurt Lucy.”

No small thrill swam up into Lucy, like a bird taking flight in her chest, hearing him pledge himself to her safety. 

“Does that mean protecting her from your creature-or-the-night girlfriend too?”  Gram said pointedly.

Gabriel didn’t move a muscle.  He didn’t even seem to be breathing.  But his entire body seemed to sag almost imperceptibly.  But Lucy noticed, and her heart sank with the sting his silence evoked in her.

She closed her eyes and these thoughts rushed through her mind. 
What was I thinking?  Why did I think he’d choose me over her?  Why the hell is Gram dragging all this up in the first place? 
And finally:
  Why am I falling in love with a man like this?

Lucy opened her eyes when she heard Gabriel’s halting answer.

“I don’t want to hurt Delia…I never planned on…on having these feelings for Lucy…”  He closed his eyes this time, just for a moment, but Lucy could tell he was being torn up inside.  Conflict made his youthful features appear much older than he was.  “I’m just not ready to…to choose.  I never thought I would be having these feelings for two people, not at the same time…and I never expected to feel like this for a human.”

What a prince…
  

But another part of Lucy was hanging onto every word like they were the lyrics to her favorite freaking song.

“But will you protect my daughter from harm—even if that danger comes from your beloved?  I think she deserves to know that you will keep her safe, since she is technically your employee, and obviously more than that from the look on you handsome face...and the kiss she told me you two shared last night,”  Gabriel suddenly blushed.  “You know, at the engagement party I wasn’t invited to.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. 
Gram is never going to let me live that down, is she?
 

Gabriel’s gaze stayed on Lucy’s grandmother for what seemed like forever, and then it moved to Lucy.  “I pledge my life to her safety.”  Lucy felt a knot of nervous tension build in her stomach.  “I will not let anyone or anything harm her.  This I swear.”

Lucy gulped as she felt her face flush this time.  Her hands were shaking as she nervously fumbled with her empty coffee cup.

“Well, now,” Gram chimed as she stood and picked up her cup and the empty plates.  “Now that that’s all settled, I think I’ll go to bed…let you two have some private time to…talk.”  She moved from the room with a graceful speed that didn’t seem natural.

But Lucy didn’t take time to ponder her
grandmother’s
other-natured-ness.  She already had someone with a definite otherness sitting right across from her, and the way Gabriel was looking at her, she felt like a doe being hunted by the big bad wolf.  Or was that Little Red Riding Hood? 

She could swear the expression on his face was saying, “I wonder what she would taste like?”

Lucy stood up, bumping the dining room table hard enough with her knee to cause a sharp pain shoot through her entire leg. 
Good work, Grace.  Nothing looks better than limping away to safety
.  Lucy suddenly flashed back to a
Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom
moment where a silver wolf pounced on a fleeing fluffy white bunny, jaws clamping down on the rabbit’s soft fur, the life evaporating immediately from the poor things entire body.

How tempting would she look if she tried limping away?  Lucy hoped he’d filled up on her grandmother’s cooking.  She turned and tried not to hobble as she beat a steady path toward the front door.  She needed some air.  And what better way to get him to leave than to lure him outside?

It worked…a little too well.  He moved to follow her so quickly that he ended up holding the door open for her as she exited to the porch.  Lucy gasped, feeling a quick, startled jolt crackle through her body.  She forced herself to breathe, and she forced herself to keep walking.  She gulped the cool evening air as she moved toward the porch railing.  She had to keep it together.  He’d said he had feelings for her, which made her feel like she was going to burst into lustful flames any moment.  But there was the other part, the part where he couldn’t choose between her and the vampire.

That really shook her to the core.  Of course he’d known Delia far longer, and he did love her—Lucy had a front-row-center seat for that fact—but he’d said he would protect her from Delia, no matter what.  And that made her feel even more confused.  On the one hand he would risk his life for her.  But he was risking her life so he could be with his vampire girlfriend.  Not to mention Lucy still had a huge honking problem with him being in love, or whatever he was feeling for her, with two women.

That alone makes him…
  Lucy couldn’t decide on the right word: a letch, a jerk, a monster?—he already was one of those.  Or did it simply mean he was a man?

“Penny for your thoughts,” Gabriel said, standing mere inches away from her.  She turned and saw the concern darkening his features again.

“I don’t think you really want to know.”

He let out a breath, and that breath tickled the side of Lucy’s neck, making her shiver enjoyably.

This is just a job, she tried to tell herself.  No matter what, what she wanted more than anything was to get her old life back.  Right? 

Gabe took hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him. 

Riiight…

“Why are you always touching me?”  She sounded suddenly very tired.  “It’s nice, but it confuses me.”

Gabriel’s expression changed from concerned to a rather wicked smile.  “So you like when I touch you?”

Crap!  Did I just say that?
  Lucy shook her head.

“So, you don’t like it when I touch you.”

“No.  I mean yes!  Oh, I don’t know what—”

Just then Gabriel leaned in, pushing her bottom up against the porch railing, then very slowly he lowered his face until their lips were practically touching.  He whispered softly, his lips grazing hers.  “Did you like it when I kissed you last night?”

Lucy’s head was swimming, and her heart was pounding hard in her chest—the chest that heaving with excited breath, pressed against Gabriel’s very broad, very warm chest.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. 

“Would you like me to do it again?” he asked, yet he didn’t get an answer; at least not a verbal one.  Lucy threw her arms around his neck and crushed her lips against his, pulling him against her, their combined weight making the railing of the old porch creak.  All of a sudden Lucy wasn’t thinking about Gabriel belonging to someone else, she forgot that only moments ago she’d been pissed at him, and that among other things, his words in the dining room had also hurt.  She didn’t care about anything except how good Gabriel tasted, how wonderful his lips felt against her own, not to mention how having his body pressed against hers felt.  There wasn’t a word to describe that, at least not one Lucy could think of.

Inside, Lucy had been ready for him to kiss her, even though moments before she had been literally running from the prospect.  She hadn’t expected to attack him with her lips.  It didn’t make sense.  She never did things like that.  She never had to—guys usually couldn’t help themselves, so they always made the first move.  But just being so close to Gabriel, having his lips so close, his scent enveloping her senses so completely—and he shouldn’t have been teasing her like that!

There was a lot of movement: hands roaming, lips sliding, tongues searching and tasting and rubbing together…and then there was the way his body moved against hers.  It made her shudder.

Gabriel pulled himself away first, pushing Lucy back by the shoulders, disconnecting their lips and putting a sudden, very unwelcome distance between them.

“We have to stop,” he groaned between gasps of air. 

That was…nice…
  Lucy was about to ask why they had to stop, yet when she opened her eyes and looked into his eyes she saw not only red hot longing there, but also something lurking, sliding behind his eyes and peering out hungrily at her: the wolf. 

“Maybe you’re right,” she croaked.  Part of her wanted to go further, to have his beast come out to play, to devour her.  But most of her was terrified and wanted to run back in the house and lock the door. 
Does Gram have a shot gun in the house?  Maybe some silver bullets?

Gabriel’s eyes cooled off and he took another step back, letting go of Lucy’s shoulders.  She felt a shiver as a cool wind whipped around her, taking away all the heat Gabriel had generated.  He suddenly looked really hurt.  “You’re scared of me.”

Lucy shook her head, wanting suddenly to deny it, but she was shaking and her voice cracked when she tried to speak. 

“I’m sorry Luce,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I’m not doing any of this right.”  

Lucy liked him calling her Luce.  It made a welcomed warmth spread from her heart out into the rest of her body.  “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here either.”  She moved toward him and wrapped her arms up under his arms, hugging herself against his still heaving chest, just inhaling him and listening to the beating of his heart.  “So, don’t feel too bad.”   

“Actually,” Gabriel whispered, “I feel pretty good.”

Lucy smiled at the complement and snuggled her cheek against the warm silk covering his chest.  “You do feel pretty good.”

He laughed, and Lucy liked the way it sounded, and how he felt in her arms as his torso lurched—the muscles there quivering as they contracted and relaxed.  Finally, after a long still moment of enjoying their embrace, Gabriel said he really should leave, that he had an early meeting in the morning.  Reluctantly Lucy let him go and watched as he moved away, looking more awkward than she’d ever seen him as he rubbed the back of his neck in consternation.  He stumbled as he took to the porch steps, and caught himself on the railing and jumped back up on the porch.