Dying to Date Read online

  Her fangs ached in her gums. What would it be like to drive them into his neck as he drove into her body? The thought melted her into a puddle of need. Whatever it was about this addicting man, she had no resistance to him.

  “More,” she purred against his mouth, her hands trailing down his chest. Hooking her fingers around his belt loops, she pulled him close, rubbing against his straining erection.

  “My apartment is close,” she offered. She nipped his lower lip lightly before leaning back to see his face.

  “How close?” he growled.

  “Very.” Rising back to her tiptoes, she pressed a gossamer kiss to his lips.

  His hands tightened on her waist. “We shouldn’t.”

  “I think we really, really should.” Melissa leaned forward for another taste when her arms were magically empty. “Seriously?” she demanded, glaring at the man now standing four feet from her.

  “I was thoroughly warned about first date etiquette,” he replied.

  She was going to kill Abbey.

  “What do they know?” she argued, closing the distance between them.

  He cupped her face, staring down at her with a tenderness she couldn’t remember seeing in another man’s eyes. “I have work to do tonight, sweetheart, not to mention I don’t want to do anything to derail this.”

  “What?”

  “Us.” He kissed her softly.

  “Trust me, great sex had never doomed any of my relationships.”

  He laughed, releasing her. “Anticipation, my dear. I’m worth the wait.”

  He had better be. No one turned her down. Maybe she was losing her touch.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

  She sighed in defeat. “Fine. Tomorrow. But don’t make me wait too long.”

  Tarian chuckled and treated her to a last toe-curling kiss. “Let me hail you a cab.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve got a town car waiting.”

  “Then until tomorrow, Ms. Redgrave.” He swept her a bow that again made her question his age. He might be more lively than the ancients she knew but he sure had some old-fashioned ideas.

  “Good night.” With a last, lingering glance, she set off down the street to her car. She couldn’t help looking back over her shoulder and grinned when she saw he was watching her.

  Fishing her cell out of her purse, she quickly texted Abbey.

  You found a winner, she typed. Fill you in when I’m home.

  Smiley faces and exclamation marks filled her screen as her friend replied. Putting her phone away, she rounded the corner and spotted her car.

  Melissa knew she was grinning like a lunatic but couldn’t do a thing to stop herself. Maybe, after all these decades, her luck was finally starting to change.

  Chapter Four

  It was impossible to concentrate on work.

  Melissa shook her head before focusing on the computer once more. She had too much to do, and spending every free moment thinking about Tarian wasn’t helping.

  He’d called earlier so they could make dinner plans for tomorrow night. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, since she hadn’t wanted to appear too eager, and she had a pile of work to get through today. Hours later, however, she wished she’d found a way to play hooky. A date a day might be a little extreme but she wasn’t too proud to admit she wanted to see him as much as she could.

  A day apart will do you good. She’d already ruined one document by doodling his name in the corner of it. Melissa needed to get a grip on herself before she saw him again. Hell, in her current state of eagerness she might scare him off, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

  “Your midnight appointment, Ms. Redgrave.”

  She didn’t even bother glancing up from her computer. Though her secretary was rarely wrong, she’d made an error this time. Melissa had gone through the schedule backward and forward to see if she could justify taking an early night to see Tarian.

  “I don’t have a midnight today, Mary,” she called. “But I will take the files on the Miller gala when you have a moment.”

  “She means she’ll take them after her lunch break,” a deep voice cut in.

  Abandoning her charity files, she looked up to see Tarian standing in her doorway.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, pushing from her chair. “We don’t have plans until tomorrow.”

  “I realize you’re busy, but I couldn’t wait.” His hands slid over her hips as she stepped up to kiss him hello.

  “This is an excellent surprise,” she murmured as her lips touched his. Conscious of her glass door and the eager eyes of her secretary, Melissa forced herself to keep the kiss chaste despite the fire roiling through her with just one touch.

  Stepping back, she smoothed her hands over the dark material of his lapel. She hadn’t thought to see him tonight, but now that he was here, standing before her, she had to fight to keep a silly, happy grin off her face.

  “Want to hear my master plan?” Tarian asked.

  “Enlighten me.”

  He held up a brown paper bag. “Even people as dedicated as you need a lunch break. I thought I’d tempt you with some food and excellent company.”

  “And I’ve pushed back your next appointment,” Mary threw in.

  Melissa arched a brow at the designer sandwich bag sitting on her secretary’s desk. “Did you bribe Mary?”

  “Shamelessly,” he agreed. “She was a wealth of information, not only about your schedule, but also on your favorite take out places.” He leaned close enough to whisper in her ear as he added, “She’s also promised not to turn around or let anyone near your office.”

  “Has she?” Melissa purred. “I knew she was an invaluable hire.”

  “Come on,” Tarian said as he caught her hand. He led her over to the small couch she couldn’t remember ever using. Lounging back on the beige upholstery, Tarian offered a delicious contrast in his tailored black suit. She was a sucker for an impeccable dresser, and Tarian was definitely a man who knew how to wear his clothes.

  “What did you bring?” she asked as she sank down beside him.

  “A sandwich for me and some blood for you.” He unpacked the bag onto the coffee table before them.

  Melissa reached for the travel cup of blood and saw her favorite restaurant’s name blazed across the plastic.

  “I must confess,” Tarian said as he unwrapped his sandwich, “I didn’t know there was a difference when it came to blood.”

  “Every person has their own unique taste but you’re right, when it comes to bagged blood it’s all pretty much the same.”

  “So why did Mary have me tracking down this particular brand?”

  “In the past decade or so chefs have been experimenting with making feeding a little less monotonous for vampires.”

  “It’d be a huge market,” he agreed.

  She took a sip of the gently warmed blood and closed her eyes in pure delight. “They mix spices and flavors into the blood to give it a bit of oomph, and this just happens to be my favorite.”

  Melissa opened her eyes to see her date staring at her with a lopsided smile. “I have to say,” he murmured, “that sight might just have been worth racing around the city.”

  Heat warmed her cheeks as she looked down. “Well, I appreciate the effort.”

  He shrugged as he ate. “This is a welcome break for me, too.”

  “Plus you are scoring major brownie points.”

  “A wise man plans ahead,” he teased.

  “Are you planning to screw this up any time soon?”

  His smile slipped a notch even as he shook his head. “Screwing things up with you is not an option I want to contemplate.”

  She kicked off her Manolo Blahniks and tugged her legs up under her. The skirt of her royal blue business dress rode up, but she didn’t bother correcting the slip. Instead she enjoyed the way Tarian’s eyes locked on the flash of skin.

  “You seem to be off to an excellent start,” she said,
leaning closer.

  “Sweetheart, you make a man want to put in some extra effort.”

  She took a sip of her blood and refrained from commenting on all the men in her past that would dispute Tarian’s words.

  “Be that as it may, no one has ever crashed my office before.”

  “The idea of staring at my phone for hours on end when I could be staring at you was far too tempting an opportunity to pass up.”

  “Fishing for a text, were we?”

  He inclined his head. “I don’t even like this new cell phone trend and there I was, walking around with the damned thing in my pocket at all times.”

  Melissa didn’t need to glance at her desk to know her own phone sat next to her keyboard, positioned so she would see it the second a text came in.

  “The art of romance is no match for the generation of iPhones and cat videos,” she said.

  His fingers twined through hers. “Exactly. What happened to the good old days of penned love letters and clandestine meetings?”

  “When a simple touch could have your heart racing,” she purred, drawing the tips of her fingers along his palm.

  “And a kiss could change everything.” He leaned forward and Melissa allowed him to push her backward into the couch.

  “Are you sure you bribed Mary well enough to give us our privacy?” she asked, angling her head back toward the glass doors of her office.

  “I added the world’s most decadent brownie to her order.”

  “Machiavelli would be proud.”

  His lips crashed down onto hers. Smiling against his mouth, Melissa wrapped her arms around his muscled shoulders and gave herself up to the pleasure of his touch. His tongue teased along the seam of her lips, demanding entry even as his hand slid over the curve of her hip. Opening her mouth, she greeted Tarian’s questing tongue with her own eager caresses.

  Melissa shifted under him to better fit his body against hers. Even as she moved, she knew she should be thinking about the full office outside her doors. There was work to be done. Meetings to prep for and files to be read. She’d put Tarian off until tomorrow for a reason.

  But right now with his hands on her body she couldn’t remember why she hadn’t leapt at any chance to see him again.

  Her fingers raked down his back, clawing at cloth when she wanted to feel skin. One of his hands slid up her hose-covered thigh. He was undeterred by her skirt’s hem and merely pushed under it instead.

  Not once, in all the years she’d worked, had any man so much as kissed her in this office, let alone engaged in a good old-fashioned make out session. The rational section of her mind demanded she put a stop to this nonsense.

  But a far more powerful part of her reveled in Tarian’s attentions. He’d been all she could think about since they’d parted ways yesterday. The man had filled her daylight dreams and consumed her waking thoughts. She’d been counting down the hours till she’d be able to see him.

  His hands gripped her thighs, pushing them apart as he shifted more intimately against her. The couch was by no means wide, but Melissa didn’t mind the close contact. When his mouth trailed a burning path down her throat she arched under him, tilting her head back to give him better access.

  Her fangs ached to explode from her gums, but she held back. Miss Manners would certainly frown at heavy petting for lunch, and Melissa didn’t even want to imagine what the woman would have to say about biting on a second date.

  The knowledge that she had no business lusting after Tarian’s blood didn’t quell the desire. It usually took months to get to the point where she’d be comfortable feeding from a lover. Longer sometimes to convince her partners to accept such an intimate act.

  Yet here she was with a man she barely knew, breaking all her rules.

  “What is it about you?” she breathed as he cupped her breasts through her dress.

  Why did he make her crave things she had no business dreaming about? It was too soon to need him this badly, to lust for his body and his blood in equal measure.

  That secret, troublemaking corner of her mind whispered that attraction was always intense between mates. Her father had been unable to think of anything but Abbey once the couple had met.

  Melissa shook her head to clear the impossible thought. Whatever Tarian and she were to each other, it was far too early to even contemplate the M word.

  Lover, however, was a word she’d be more than happy to consider.

  “You really should have come home with me last night,” she whispered in his ear.

  “A mistake I’ll regret for a long time to come,” he replied. “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

  “Does that mean I have to be a lady?” She reached down to stroke her fingers along the erection straining from his trousers.

  His swift inhalation brought a smile to her lips.

  “You can be whatever the hell you want to be.”

  What if I want to be yours?

  She cleared her throat and pushed back the rogue thought. “Right now,” she said, pressing a hand to his chest, “I want to be professional.”

  He allowed her to push him off of her, though he arched a brow at her words. “Want?”

  Her lips twitched. “Need,” she amended.

  Tarian ran a hand through his tousled hair. “Understood. I want it noted I hadn’t intended to seduce you in your rather exposed office.”

  “No?”

  His boyish smile made an appearance as he righted his jacket. “Hoped is not the same as planned.”

  Melissa wiggled her dress back into place and patted her hair. “Do I look like we’ve been doing naughty things?”

  “You look perfect,” he replied, reaching out to tuck a curl back into place.

  The mixture of lust and tenderness in his eyes would have made her heart race if it still had the ability.

  “We could just hang out at my place tomorrow,” she suggested. “I can dazzle you with my cooking skills.”

  “You cook?”

  She shrugged. “I microwave. And when I have people over who consume food, I am a takeout ordering queen.”

  His laughter filled the room, and an inordinate amount of pride filled her that she’d caused such a wonderful sound to emerge.

  “How about we make it a quick dinner?” he compromised. “Then back to your place.”

  “Not going to fight me this time?”

  “Never again,” he said. “Gentlemanly behavior be damned.”

  “Excellent news.” She leaned over to press her lips to his.

  It was a light touch. One meant to promise rather than enflame, but even so, Melissa didn’t want to pull back.

  Tomorrow, she told herself. Once she had him in her apartment she could explore his body at her leisure.

  “I should go,” he said against her mouth. “We’re running out of time.”

  “I know.” She sat back with a sigh as he scooped his half-eaten sandwich back into its brown bag. “Looks like the concept of lunch got a little lost on us.”

  He tossed her a grin. “I’m not complaining.”

  “Me, either,” she said as they stood.

  “Till tomorrow then.”

  “Tomorrow,” she agreed. “I can’t wait.”

  He took her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “Neither can I.” With a last heated look, he strode from her office.

  Melissa had barely managed to make her way back to her desk when Mary swept in with files for her perusal.

  “Good lunch?” her assistant asked.

  “The best,” she sighed.

  “He’s got damn fine taste in chocolate,” Mary said. “An excellent quality in a man.”

  “The list of his excellent qualities is rapidly growing. I’m half waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  Mary shrugged. “Unless it’s one hell of a shoe, I doubt it’ll make much difference.”

  “You are, as usual, correct.” Accepting the files she shooed Mary from the office.

  When it c
ame to Tarian, she had the suspicion she’d be willing to forgive a hell of a lot. A smile curved her lips as she attempted to focus on her work once more. Tomorrow she’d just have to try and uncover more of his secrets. After she got the man in bed, of course.

  Grinning, she glanced at the clock on her wall and wished that time would move just a little bit faster.

  …

  Tarian sighed as the elevator doors closed behind him.

  “Damn,” he whispered into the empty space.

  He’d come there tonight half hoping their first date had been a fluke. After all, no necromancer could really be that interested in a vampire so quickly. Even if that vampire was as close to perfection as he’d found in hundreds of years.

  Except seeing Melissa again only underscored what he’d felt the night before. He liked being around her, and not just because he’d love to spread her out across his bed. No, it was far more insidious than that. He liked her unique mix of confidence and uncertainty. The blushes that stained her cheeks even when she tried to appear unaffected. The way she lit up when she spoke about the charities she worked with.

  His instinctive reaction to her may have driven him to see her at Celeste’s, but tonight he’d hunted her down because he couldn’t stand not to.

  “Grandfather will have a heyday with this,” he murmured.

  He’d woken this morning to find a list of reasons to fight against the vampires taped to his bathroom mirror. Eilin was far more passionate about the cause than he’d given her credit for. Then again, he well remembered what it was like to be young and blinded by hatred. Maybe he should take her and run. Leave New York behind and hide his sister from their grandfather’s bloody crusade.

  Tarian closed his eyes. That would mean moving yet again. Hopping from city to city trying to stay a step ahead of his family. After running for so many years he was just…

  Tired.

  New York was their fresh start and he wanted to make the most of it. See what life could be like with a permanent address. Living here might be an impossible dream for a necromancer, but he’d had enough of his bloodline limiting his choices.