Wanton With a Vampire (2 page)

“I see your friend, Trish,” he said to
Hannah, who was seated near the end of the table.

Hannah looked relieved. “Good, I was
beginning to think she wouldn’t make it today.”

Lydia snorted. “She didn’t want to make it
today.”

“That’s not true!” Hannah argued.

“Yes, it is,” Caitlin said, sounding
bored.

Alek decided to ignore their argument and
indulge himself a little. Bad idea or not, he wanted to be closer
to Trish. Since he’d already broken his family’s rule regarding
her, he figured he might as well push things just a bit more. This
was a controlled environment, making it safer to flirt a little.
After all, how far could he take things with his family in the same
room?

“Do you mind if I trade spots with you?” he
asked his nephew, Isaiah.

Isaiah shrugged and moved across the table to
sit beside Ivy. Suddenly, Alek felt much less annoyed at his oldest
brother for pressuring him into attending this dinner party. The
purpose of this gathering was to discuss Hannah and Noah’s wedding,
or more precisely, so his brother could pressure Hannah and Noah
into getting married. Roman’s relationship with Noah never ceased
to amaze Alek. Noah was Roman’s second wife’s son, and the result
of an affair she’d had. Still, Roman treated Noah like his own
son.

Alek frowned when he noticed Trish was
limping. Conversation continued around him as he excused himself
from the table to make sure she was okay. It was entirely possible
that she’d twisted her ankle trying to walk in her ridiculously
high-heeled shoes.

When he reached Trish on the sidewalk outside
the restaurant, she looked more than a little frazzled. “Are you
hurt?”

Initially, Trish stared at him like he’d lost
his mind, but then she seemed to catch on to his concern. “You must
mean the limp. The heel on my shoe is about ready to fall off,” she
explained, and he reached out to take her arm. “Thank you,” she
said, smiling up at him.

It came as no surprise that he was already
getting hard, since that was what close proximity to Trish did to
him. “Always glad to help a lady in distress,” he said, trying for
a light tone. “Are those new glasses?”

“Yeah, I guess I can take these off now that
I’m not driving,” Trish said, reaching up to remove them.

“Don’t take them off,” he said. “They look
nice on you.”

“Nice,” she muttered, her smile slipping.
“That’s why I wear them. Oh, that and my eyesight is getting worse
as I get older.”

Trish talking about herself getting older
made him laugh. Compared to Alek’s four and half centuries, she was
little more than a child. Although, he supposed, to humans she
might not be as young as he perceived her to be. “You haven’t even
seen twenty-five years yet, have you?”

“I’ll be twenty-nine in a few months,” she
admitted.

That shocked Alek— not that twenty-nine
sounded particularly old to him. “I assumed you were younger.”

“It’s the voice, isn’t it?” she asked, making
an adorably sexy face at him.

He chuckled. “No, it’s not your voice. I
suppose it’s a combination of things. Your friends are all
twenty-five or younger, and you’re a college student. I’ve noticed
that most college students are younger.”

“Not everyone is born with money,” she said a
little angrily. “I’ve had to pay for my own college education. In
fact, I had to get a job after high school before I even started
college. Now, I can only take classes part-time because I have to
work.”

“What do you do?” he asked.

“I’m a photographer,” she said.

“What are you studying?” he asked.

“I’m working on my Master’s degree in
Anthropology.”

Alek met Roman’s annoyed stare from across
the room, which is when he realized he’d been standing just inside
the restaurant talking to Trish for too long. With a sigh, he
gestured toward the table. “We’d better head over there before they
send someone to get us.”

Trish glared at the table. “There’s this part
of me that wants to stand here just to prove I don’t have to do
what they say.”

Alek chuckled. “Shall we stand here for the
rest of the evening?”

She sighed. “No, they’d just come over here
to get us, and I’m not very good with confrontation.”

With a hand on her lower back, Alek led Trish
over to the table where his family was impatiently waiting. While
holding out the chair for her, his fingers lingered on her bare
shoulders for just a moment. He couldn’t help but take satisfaction
in her shiver.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Trish said, leaning
forward to get away from Alek’s long fingers.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie,” Lydia said
with a dismissive wave. “I’m not even sure why we all have to be
here for this.”

Normally, Trish would be the one going on
about how it was always great to get together with friends, but she
just wasn’t in the mood for it today. On top of her rare bout of
self-pity, she knew Alek was intentionally brushing his thigh
against hers. Giving him an annoyed glare, she shifted in her seat
to put more distance between them— not that it did any good.

Trish was trying to follow the conversation
at the table, but concentrating proved difficult with Alek’s
constant attempts to brush up against her. For whatever reason, he
was acting like a complete jerk. Each time she scooted her chair
farther to the side, Alek followed. Justin was giving her weird
looks— not that she could blame him. The poor man was sitting on
her other side and must be wondering why she was almost on top of
him.

“Excuse me,” she practically snapped, before
hobbling off to the bathroom for a short reprieve from Alek. It
came as no surprise when Lydia pushed in right behind her, almost
shutting her ankle-length blonde hair in the bathroom door. “You
know, Lyd, these bathrooms are designed for one person. It looks
funny when you come in them with me.”

Lydia grinned at her. “Right, like every man
out there isn’t wondering if I came in after you for some lovin’.
We would make totally hot lesbians.”

Trish giggled. “You are too much! How does
Roman stand living with you?”

“That man is a total freak,” Lydia said. “So,
what’s up with you?”

“What do you mean?” Trish asked, staring at
the mirror above the sink.

“You’re acting weird.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking
about.”

“Why are you squirming and moving your seat
all over? Seriously, if you move much more, you’ll be sitting in
Justin’s lap. Is Alek harassing you? The men all know they aren’t
allowed to mess with you, but I get the impression Alek doesn’t
always follow the rules. Do I need to get Roman to have another
talk with him?”

Trish felt her cheeks heat, hating the blush.
“It’s nothing. He drove me home from Hannah’s a couple of weeks
ago, and things were a little unusual. I’m not surprised that he’s
confused about the boundaries with me.”

“Did you have sex with Aleksandr Draksel?”
Lydia gasped.

“What? No! He didn’t get anywhere near my
lady parts. Not undressed lady parts at least.” He’d been plenty
close to her fully-clothed lady parts— much closer than she should
have allowed. Things had definitely gotten out of hand the night
Alek drove her home.

“Trish,” Lydia said with a sigh before
shaking her head and starting to twist her hair around her finger,
something Lydia did when she was nervous or deep in thought. “Ah
hell, I don’t even know what to say. There’s this big part of me
that wants to tell you to stay away from Alek. As we’ve discussed
before, he’s a total man-whore.”

“I’m not an idiot, Lyd,” Trish snapped. “Stop
twisting your hair or you’ll end up tangled in it again.” Lydia’s
change into a vampire had resulted in her hair inexplicably growing
to her ankles. No matter how short she cut her hair, it grew back
within a few hours.

Lydia let out a raspy giggle. “Yeah, that
would not be good. You suck at untying me from my hair.” Her
expression turned serious. “I’m worried about you getting
hurt.”

“I won’t get hurt, Lyd,” she assured her.
“Alek only does casual sex, and I don’t sleep around.”

“I agree with all of that,” Lydia said with a
wicked grin. “Then I remember that you haven’t been hot for a guy
in forever. Maybe I should encourage you to let Alek bang your
brains out. He looks like he knows what he’s doing.”

“Geez, Lyd. Do you have to be so crude about
it?”

“Yes,” Lydia stated. “I don’t want you
thinking I’m encouraging some romantic relationship with Alek.”

“Since I can see where your mind is headed
with this, I’m going to stop you right here. I’m not having sex
with Alek. What happened that night was a huge mistake, and it will
never happen again. Your husband would have a cow if he found out
about that night. No, he’d have a whole darn herd of cows if he
found out.”

There was a determined knock on the bathroom
door.

“Now you’re in trouble. Caitlin is here,”
Lydia said while wagging a finger at Trish.

Trish groaned. “We cannot have another person
in this bathroom.”

Obviously, she was wrong because Caitlin
squeezed in with them.

“Don’t try to deny it,” Caitlin said by way
of greeting. “My super cool empath abilities picked up on a whole
lot out there. If you lie to me, I’ll be forced to read your
mind.”

“I liked you better when you were repressing
your talents,” Trish grumbled.

“What she’s saying is that she liked you more
when you were just a bitch, not a know-it-all bitch,” Lydia
explained.

Caitlin responded by looking down her nose at
Lydia, which wasn’t hard. Barefoot, Caitlin was a few inches taller
than Lydia. In her high-heeled strappy sandals, Caitlin was almost
six-feet tall. With her slender frame, cat-like amber eyes, and
straight black hair, the woman looked formidable. Many times, looks
were deceiving, but not in this case.

“Now, that was just rude, and we both know
Trish would never say anything that mean to me while she’s sober,”
Caitlin said with a smirk.

They all laughed because it was true; Trish
was the one in their group who tried to be nice to everyone, except
when she’d had a couple of drinks.

“So, spill,” Caitlin demanded. “What’s going
on with Alek?”

“For the last time, nothing is going on with
Alek. He kissed me, but we did not have sex.” Trish decided to
leave out the part about how Alek had been lying on top of her with
one hand under her shirt while they kissed, and she was definitely
leaving out the part about how that kiss had lasted about thirty
minutes. She was also not about to tell them she’d climaxed from
having Alek grind against her. Nope, she was not sharing any of
that with her meddling friends.

“When was the last time you had sex?” Caitlin
asked.

Trish thought for a while but couldn’t
remember, which was pretty depressing. Admittedly, her only
experiences hadn’t exactly been memorable.

“I’m taking your silence to mean it’s been a
very long time,” Caitlin guessed. “I know the Draksel men have this
big rule about not touching you, but I think Alek would break it.
He’d be discreet too. I can tell he’s that kind of guy.”

“And then what?” Trish asked. “I’m not the
type to have casual sex.”

“You’re right,” Lydia said before pulling her
into a hug. “Sex with Alek is a bad idea. Even if it weren’t for
the human thing, Alek is a total man-whore.”

“No, he’s not!” Caitlin said with a grin.
“Alek is the ultimate man-whore.”

“We’ve already covered that,” Trish
grumbled.

“Don’t want you to forget,” Lydia said.

“Let’s just go back to the table.” Trish was
even willing to face Alek to escape this conversation about whether
she should sleep with him. “When are we planning to tell Hannah and
Noah they’re getting married?” She was proud of her subject change.
This should keep them both distracted.

Lydia laughed. “This was Roman’s idea, so he
gets to tell them. I have no idea why he thinks Noah’s going to do
what he’s told. That man has been defying Roman for nearly two
centuries.”

Arriving back to the table, Trish was greeted
by Hannah’s worried frown, making Trish suspect that if they’d
stayed in the bathroom much longer, Hannah would have ended up in
there too. Actually, she was shocked Tempest hadn’t barged in. It’s
not that Tempest knew her well enough to want in on the
conversation, but at seven months pregnant with triplets, Tempest
had to use the bathroom every twenty minutes.

“I’m glad we’re all together,” Noah said with
a mischievous twinkle in his hazel eyes. “This dinner is the
perfect time to let you know that Hannah and I are getting
married.”

The silence that greeted them was enough to
make Noah laugh and turn to Hannah. “Told you this was a shotgun
wedding planning committee.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Typical bossy
vampires. Noah figured it out and beat you to the punch.”

The knowing smile that spread across Roman’s
face made Noah frown.

Trish got the impression things were going
exactly as Roman had expected them to.

Lydia let out a snort of laughter. “Watching
the two of you never gets old.”

After an hour of Alek flirting and Noah going
on about how much he adored Hannah, Trish was done with the whole
thing. She had to get out of the restaurant before she said
something she’d later regret. “I hate to run out on all of you, but
I need to get on the road before dark.” That wasn’t a complete lie.
Even with her glasses, it was getting harder to drive at night.

“We should all go home,” Roman said in his
overly proper voice as he waved for the check. “You go ahead,
Trish. We don’t want you stuck out here.” Trish didn’t miss the
glare Roman shot in Alek’s direction. It appeared Roman had noticed
Alek’s bad behavior that evening.