The Vampire's Bride (4 page)

“Thinking about how we first met?”

“I was horny, you had no shirt on, and I hadn’t had sex in ages.

You took advantage.”
As did I.

“As did you.”

Snap.
“For all the reasons I just said.” Josephine moved away from Alaric. One soulful look from him and she would once more be on the steps with her legs spread, ready to receive. Instead, she looked
28

Amarinda Jones

down at her bedraggled gown. This was not how she envisioned her wedding day. It had all been planned out to be sedate and tasteful.

Everything Alaric wasn’t.

“I want to go home.”

“This is home. You just don’t realize it yet.”

“Don’t get all mystical on me, vampire.” Even as she said the words, Josephine knew there was something about Maverick House that caught and held her. It was a feeling that was slowly catching hold within her. Maybe it was magic. Maybe it was just the man at her side. Whatever it was, being there now was one more confusing thing on an already perplexing day.

“You’re cute when you’re angry.” He started to tug at her clothes.

“Stop that!” Josephine slapped at his hands. The last thing she needed was to be naked with Alaric. He had a way of changing her mind with a simple caress.

Alaric appeared unfazed. Instead he lifted her skirts in one move and pressed his body to hers. “Why?”

Oh no
. “Because…”
Why do I want dick when I really want to be
over you?

“Bad answer.” He pushed her up against a nearby wall.

She could feel his covered cock up against her stomach. “Alaric, we need to talk.”

“After we fuck.” His hands cupped her ass, and he lifted her up until she was pinned against the wooden paneling.

Josephine entwined her legs instinctively around his waist. “I won’t be able to concentrate then.”

“Exactly.” His lips were an inch from hers. “Unzip me.”

“No.” And yet her hands rested just above his waistband.

“Come on, baby, you know you want cock.”

As crude as that sounded, it made Josephine feel hot all over.

Yeah, I want cock
. She had lived for months without feeling that heated fullness between her thighs. But Josephine didn’t want to make
The Vampire’s Bride

29

this easy for him. She was not going to have Alaric think she would immediately do as he said.

He smiled at her, his fangs gleaming white. “You’re the least easy person I know.”

“Are you reading my mind?” That could be very dangerous. He knew too much about her already.

“I wish I could. Then I’d have all the answers to please you.”

Josephine was surprised at the sincerity in his eyes. “Is that important?” Was it more than just the house that he loved?

Alaric nodded. “More than you’ll ever realize, baby. Please let me in.”

It was the “please” that did it. Her fingers tugged down on his zip.

His cock jumped out. Alaric wasted no time in positioning her body so he could plunge inside her cunt with one single thrust. Josephine moaned and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “W-W-We have to stop doing this.”

“Why?” Alaric slammed in and out of her body.

“Because, um…” It was hard to think of reasons when the most delightful friction was sending tremors of pleasure up her spine. “We have to talk about stuff—serious stuff.” Josephine doubted they had ever had one serious moment together. Normally it was just fun and sex. While that was amazing, she wanted to know where her life would go with someone who would never age and if he could even commit to her, without wandering off as he previously had, in whatever future they had together.

“So talk.”

Her head banged up against the wall as he banged into her. “Not now. I can’t focus on anything but you.”

“Is that so bad?” He leaned in and kissed her.

Josephine sighed against his lips. “After all these months, you just expect everything to be the same.”

“Yes, because I love you.”

Everything always seemed simple for him. “Oh, Alaric…”

30

Amarinda Jones

“And you love me.”

Josephine didn’t get a chance to answer.

“Oh dear!” Polly Patrick, housekeeper to Maverick House, appeared. Her mouth dropped open on seeing them.

Josephine felt herself blush ten different shades of red. “Hi, Polly.”

The chatelaine of the house was a large, buxom woman who dyed her hair vivid red. If Josephine had to guess, she would have said Polly was anywhere in age between thirty-seven and ninety-seven.

She dressed like a teenager in bright, out-of-control colors, yet she had the mind of a sage. Polly alternatively terrified and fascinated Josephine.

The older woman closed her mouth and smiled, her eyes riveted on Josephine’s face as if anywhere else would be too hard to deal with. “Always good to see you, dear.”

“Oh hell, Polly. Of all the times to show up,” Alaric growled.

“Keep your pants on—I mean, calm down. How was I to know you were shagging a guest in the front parlor?” She smiled at Josephine. “How have you been?”

“Um, okay.” This was one of the stranger conversations she had taken part in. Josephine was pinned by a cock to the wall and wondering whether the subject of the weather or would she like a pot of tea would be brought up next.

“Please rack off, Polly.” Alaric’s voice was calm and polite, yet his eyes were fierce with need.

“Oh, yes, of course. We’ll get caught up later once you’ve, er, once he’s…um, well, you know.” Polly scuttled out.

Josephine’s pushed her forehead against Alaric’s. “That was embarrassing.” While she knew Polly had probably seen and done more in her life than she could imagine, sex was not something Josephine considered a spectator sport.

“Why? Was she looking at my ass?” Once more he began thrusting within Josephine.

The Vampire’s Bride

31

She slapped his shoulder. “Alaric, not everything in life is about y-y-you.”
Damn, he is good
. Her whole body shook under the deep pounding of his cock. The driving force of his body against hers triggered a delightful itch that was spiraling out of control. “Hurry up.” She wanted to come, but with him. There was something special feeling the man she loved jerking and groaning on release as she came.
The man I love?
Josephine shook her head. This morning she had planned to marry Jimmy, a man who barely touched her, and now here she was slammed up against a wall, urging on her errant ex-lover.

“We’re going to have to make time for a long, slow fuck.”

Alaric’s words came out strained as his thrusts became harder and deeper.

Josephine could taste the sweat on her upper lip. “I’m going home after this.” She tightened her hold on Alaric.

“You’re so funny, baby.”

“As are y-y-you.” She gasped as the most amazing sensation of pleasure, pain, and relief shot through her body.

“Oh, I’m never going to leave you again.” Alaric stiffened against her, his body tense as he came.

The feel of hot cum shooting into her body was primal and intense. A wild feeling of ownership gripped Josephine.
This is my
man. But can I trust him to stay?

32

Amarinda Jones

Alaric watched as Josephine walked to the side door that led to the garden. Her wedding dress was crumpled and torn, her brown hair hung tangled around her shoulders, and her face was solemn. She was the most beautiful woman he knew. As for the solemnity? Alaric knew Josephine was confused. She had every right to be. One minute he was in her life, the next he disappeared, only to reappear months later when she was trying to get on with her life without him.

Josephine had every right to be angry. But to marry someone else?

Someone called Jimmy?

“I don’t think so,” he muttered under his breath. Josephine getting fucked by Richard he could deal with. His cousin was like an oversized sex toy for Josephine to play with. That was just sex. There was no threat in her playing with him, but this Jimmy guy? It was scary to think his woman had been that close to walking down the aisle and into suburbia. Josephine wasn’t the stuff of housewives.

And yes, Alaric had been caught up in the battle for ownership of Maverick House. That race had intensified when both vampires had discovered that the first one to marry their true love would own the house. The local witch had told them that. Neither had approached her. She had made herself known only to Polly and delivered the news.

At the time, Alaric had been suspicious. “What’s in it for her?”

“She said she feels cosmic unrest. That the power from Maverick House is causing it,” Polly had explained to him after her visit. “You and I both know the power that is here and that if it gets into the wrong hands—”

The Vampire’s Bride

33

While he was unaware of the extent of the power, Alaric could feel it. “There will be chaos.” He had lived long enough to know if any talisman, such as Maverick House, was not cared for, it could cause a cosmic shift in the supernatural world.

“Why tell us now?” While Alaric knew everything happened for a reason, he liked to know what the reason was.”

“Maybe, you’re ready to hear it now.”

“Possibly.” Alaric was the first to admit that vampires didn’t take a lot seriously until reality was forced on them.

“So you two have to get your acts together. You know this house and the land it stands on is sensitive to the moods of your kin. It has stood here for centuries. You two have only been allowed access to it recently, and you’ve created nothing but havoc with your bickering.”

“We’re grown men. We don’t bicker.”

Polly rolled her eyes. “Okay, so you whine a lot. Just get your acts together, or neither of you will have a peaceful future.”

Alaric didn’t doubt for a second that Polly was right. She always was. The housekeeper was one of the few people Alaric stood in awe of. Why? He wasn’t sure. He was eighty percent certain Polly was mortal, and yet there was something indefinable about her that made him wary. But she was one of the few people who knew the ins and outs of Maverick House. Before he and Richard had arrived, the house had remained silent and watchful but for Polly. Each successive housekeeper, like Polly, had maintained it without question. It was their job, and they never queried it.

Although he had been aware Maverick House existed, neither he nor Richard had been permitted to visit. They had to be summoned.

That had annoyed them, but they knew that when they were summoned, in this case by Polly, there would be good reason. What it was, they still hadn’t been sure, and Polly’s vague allusion to “your futures” hadn’t helped.

Alaric shook his head and tried to focus on the present. The future was unfathomable.

34

Amarinda Jones

“Josephine hasn’t changed.” Polly’s eyes were on the woman who walked through the garden.

“No. She is still beautiful and stubborn.”

Polly turned her eyes to Alaric. “When are you going to tell her?”

“I’m not.” He didn’t want to. Alaric could imagine the fury from Josephine when he explained he needed to marry her to keep the house. Yes, he could share the premises with Richard, but vampires weren’t good at that. Their home was their castle and no one else’s.

He knew Richard felt the same way. Although they were immortals and had spent years spinning around the world doing what they pleased, every vampire, at heart, had the deep-seated need for a home, and Maverick House was it. Problem was, they both wanted it, and only one could have it. That pleasure-loving Richard was off pursuing a woman in itself was alarming.
I will not let him beat me. This house
is mine
.

“Josephine’s not stupid.”

“No, and I don’t want her thinking I need her just because of Maverick House.” Alaric loved Josephine. He had since the moment they met.

“Well, that’s why you went and got her.”

Unlike other mortals, Polly was unafraid to stare him down. “No, she was going to marry some suburban dimwit.”

Polly looked surprised. “Really?”

“Yes. Someone called Jimmy. How could she want a Jimmy when she could have me?”
What did a Jimmy even look like? I may have to
pay him a visit
. Alaric linked his hands together and cracked his knuckles.

“Clearly she’s out of her mind,” murmured Polly with deep sarcasm.

“You know, the house was the least of my concerns. Josephine’s supposed to love me. Not someone called Jimmy.” Alaric knew he was guilty of neglecting her, but he always believed in his heart neither could marry another. They were meant for each other. Once
The Vampire’s Bride

35

married, his immortality diminished. Alaric wanted that and Josephine.
I want to be normal with the woman I love.

“She loves you too much. You’re her weakness.”

“As she is mine.”

Polly nodded. “You need to tell her.”

“I will.”

“Before Richard does.”

“Damn Richard.” Alaric loved his cousin, and he hated his cousin.

They had grown up together and travelled together. The only thing that divided them was Maverick House. “He’s a pain in the ass.”

“He says that about you.” Polly looked amused. “Richard will find out Josephine is here.”

“What is it with women who like force?” Alaric knew it was a fetish that Josephine could not help but to give in to. He himself could not treat her as Richard did. There was no love in it. There was a dominance and control. Alaric accepted her need for it as she accepted his need for blood. That thirst would never decrease with the end of immortality. Alaric had to respect Josephine’s desire.

“It’s hard to explain,” Polly responded. “It’s the feeling that you’re being forced to be bad and you would never normally do that.”

Alaric looked at the housekeeper. There was so much he didn’t know about this woman. What were her needs? Polly spoke very little about herself and never directly answered questions involving her own life. She was an enigma and perfect for Maverick House, where nothing was as it seemed.