Vampires and Sexy Romance (64 page)

In her haste to get into the building Susan slipped getting out of the car, turning her ankle.
Damn heels!
She staggered for a few feet before she regained her footing. Her ankle hurt, but she still needed to get to the party. The doorman was young and pretty, and not only held the door but asked if she was all right.

He’d seen her slip.

“I’m fine, thank you. Where to for the Costa Gala?”

“Just take any of the elevators to the top floor, ma’am.” He tilted his hat and looked like John Wayne. He didn’t really. But he made her think of John Wayne. And she thought of
The Quiet Man
, and then of Kevin dragging her across that beach six months ago. How warm and strong his hand had been.

Susan gulped and teetered on her heels as she maneuvered herself toward the bank of elevators. The doors to all the elevators were polished to a gleaming mirror-like shine. She caught sight of her reflection and thought again that Lance had done well by her, very well. She couldn’t remember a single day in her life she’d looked prettier, or more stylish.

Except she had this expression on her face. What was it? Desperation? Hunger? Need?

She shook all the thoughts from her head when the doors to the closest elevator opened to the tintinnabulation of a fictitious bell. She entered the mirror lined box, hit the button for the top floor and waited for the doors to close.

And then it hit her: she was going to have to tell Kevin she loved him.

Sounded easy, but just thinking about saying it to him make her mouth as dry as the Sahara, and her knees start to shake. No, her knees were just tired because of the turned ankle, and the long ass drive back to the city, and the nature hike she’d gone on right before Liz had shown up. And the cotton mouth was just because she was dehydrated, nothing more.

I love you
.

It didn’t sound right in her head. Sure, she could hear herself saying it, her voice wrapping itself around it, could even feel it on the tip of her tongue, taste it like candy, roll it around, sizing it up, weighing it, frantically calculating how it would come out.

I love you.

No, that was too short, too blunt. She needed more. She couldn’t just throw that at him without some kind of wind up.

Kevin
, I love you.

Yeah, that’s so much better.

“I know I’ve been--insane?” she whispered under her breath. “Crazed? Acting like a cat in heat? But it’s just because I’m...I’m so...sooo...”

Okay, more words weren’t going to help. Susan took a deep breath. She’d just walk right up to him and kiss him. Kiss him hard, say everything she couldn’t say with her lips and tongue, with…well, her lips and tongue.

She slapped herself in the forehead just as the doors of the elevator slid open. A waiter with a silver tray of champagne flutes stood there and offered her a glass. She smiled gratefully and scooped one up and downed it, throwing it back like a shot, chugging it in three long gulps. She closed her eyes as the cold sparkling alcohol washed over her parched tongue and slid down her dry throat. She opened her eyes, ignoring the startled look on the waiter’s face as she set the empty glass back on the tray, and took another glass.

“Liquid courage?” The warm, silky voice of Francesca Costa slipped through the air and made Susan’s heart stop cold. “I think you’ve tried that before--not a good idea.” She took the glass from Susan’s hand and placed it back on the tray. “But I’m so glad to see you could make it. I was about to send a search party out for you.”

“For me?”
Why the hell does she care? Oh, right. She doesn’t want to lose her new top architect.

“Yes, my dear. The whole reason for this party is because of you.”

Susan chuckled. “And celebrating your company’s win of the opera house project has nothing at all to do with it?”

Francesca smiled the slyest, most vicious of smiles, and slipped her silky arm into Susan’s, locking them together at the elbow. Arm in arm, like old friends, Francesca guided her away from the front of the great room and into the din and crush of the other guests.

“Guilty,” she said. “I do love to throw parties when my company wins a big account. But just between you and me, I haven’t had near as many occasions to do so since you showed up in town.”

“Sorry,” Susan said, yet clearly not.

“I’m sure you’re not.”
Observant.
“But I could’ve shown Kevin and his marvelous design off just as well at a swanky cocktail party in my own home.”

“Are you trying to tell me you rented out this joint just so you wouldn’t have to invite me into your home? Because I’ve already been to your place.”

“And I choose to remember only the sober times.”

Susan felt a flush of embarrassment burn at her face.

“But that’s hardly the reason I was getting at. I needed to set the stage...for you.”

Susan stopped and turned to face Francesca head on. “Set the stage for what? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Temper, temper. No need to make a scene.” Francesca was deceptively strong, turning, and pulling Susan effortlessly back into step with her. “I was only trying to tell you that I wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to win Kevin back.”

Susan stopped again. This time she just stood there, all her strength leaving her. Her heart might have even stopped. She certainly had stopped breathing. It was worse than she’d thought. Not only would she have to say she loved him, but she’d have to win him back.

“I’m not going to be able to do it,” she said to no one in particular.

Francesca jerked her head in Susan’s direction, boring her icy blue eyes into hers. “Of course you can do it! He’s yours, all you have to do is claim him.”

Claim him she says. Like he’s waiting for her in lost and found.

Susan stared into Francesca’s gleaming eyes. “I love him, I really do, but I don’t know if I can handle him being...” And she just stopped talking. She still couldn’t get her head wrapped around the idea that he was a better architect than she was. It was all she’d had left, all that remained of her dreams, of her identity. She was going to be the best architect. And now her best friend would be. And he would be her lover too.

How could she stand it, absorb it into herself and not go insane?

“What can’t you handle?”

Susan shook her head. She’d forgotten Francesca was even there.

“That Kevin’s a better architect than me.” There, she’d said it. She should be having that wonderful, uplifting, weight-off-her-shoulders sensation any moment. Yet all she felt like was a jealous, whiny bitch.

Francesca threw her head back and began laughing in a cruel, demented rapture. Again, she was a dead ringer for Michele Pfeiffer as Catwoman.

Finally, Susan had to glare at Francesca. “It’s not funny.” Her voice was tight and low, like a growl.

Francesca held a manicured hand to her nonexistent belly. “You’re right, it’s not funny, it’s hysterical.” She sighed and took a few deep breaths. Everyone in the room was staring. “Come with me, I have something to show you.” She took Susan by the arm. Susan pulled away from her, but Francesca grabbed her again. “Believe me, you need to see this.”

As Francesca drew Susan further into the party Susan felt more and more as if she were hiking up some steep mountain trail, and that she was coming closer and closer to actually scaling up the side of a cliff.

Susan tried to put the brakes on again as they rounded a corner. “All I need to do is see Kevin, or at least I did before I started doubting my own worth, thank you very much. Whatever you need to show me can just--”

Susan lost the words she was going to say. She lost the thread of the conversation she was having with Francesca. She even forgot her own name for a moment as she stared at the wall sized monitor in front of her, which contained Kevin’s design for the opera house, in three dimensional, fully-visualized splendor. From the elegantly cut marble facade to the sparkling water flowing down the steps of a waterfall springing from a pin and gold clamshell molding between the two arched entryways that led to two enormous leaded-glass front doors.

The point of view moved inside, showing the color of the inside walls, the texture of the curtains, the grand majesty of the simple yet towering floor plan of the stage and the seating and the second tier of seats, and the gilded private boxes.

Susan had never seen anything like it. It was glorious and yet intimate all at once. And though she’d seen nothing like it before, it seemed to always have been there.
Timeless.

“It’s beautiful,” Susan whispered, her gaze never leaving the monitor. But beautiful wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, to describe the design she was staring at with rapt attention.

“Kevin spent the first year after college traveling Europe,” Francesca said, as she too stared into the enormous monitor.

“I remember. He had a Europass and about a thousand bucks he’d saved up.”

“Well, he spent that year going to and studying as much of the old architecture as he could, especially old theaters and opera houses. Went as far as to goad the architects rebuilding the Fenice in Venice to explain how the very walls of the theater could make the music sound even better.” She looked at Susan and smiled. “He’s been dreaming of designing an opera house ever since. I think he knows what he’s doing. And so did the Maestro.”

“The Maestro.” Susan’s voice cracked with a touch of bitterness. “He must have hated my design.”

“He hated all the designs, until he saw Kevin’s.”

The more Susan gazed up into the monitor, the more lost she became in Kevin’s creation. It was gorgeous. So much better than the tower of steel and glass she’d thought of. And it just didn’t matter. And that thought filled her with warmth and golden light. Not just the thought, but knowing, right there and then, that no matter if Kevin was a better architect or not, that it didn’t matter. She would love him anyway. She would let her foolish pride go and just let herself love him.

“I don’t care if he’s better than me.” She didn’t mean for the words to cross her lips, but she felt a weight lift as she said them. “I’m still in love with him.”

Francesca laughed again and slapped Susan lightheartedly on the arm. “You don’t really think he’s better than you, do you?”

Susan turned to look at her old idol, amazed at what she’d just suggested. She turned back to the monitor. “But just look at it.”

“Yes, this design is much better than the one you made. But there are many other projects that Kevin won’t even challenge you for...at least not yet. If he stays, then maybe I can guide him, mentor him until he is real competition for not just you, but for everyone.”

Susan smiled. Francesca sounded so sure of herself, and so very proud of Kevin. “You really care for him.”

“Like he was one of my own kids.”

“I love him.” And with that Susan felt all the thoughts and feelings that had kept her away from him melt away. The thought of telling him she loved him didn’t seem hard at all. It all seemed so easy. She turned to Francesca and said, “Where is he?”

Francesca smiled and nodded in the direction of the balcony. “Out there, in the dark, missing you.”

Susan’s heart skipped as she took a deep breath and started to move toward the open doors to the balcony. Her future awaited her.

SUSAN FOUND THE BALCONY deserted. Not a soul stood anywhere on its spacious overlook. No one was out there, not even Kevin. Her chest tightened, and her heart, that had been beating so hard with excitement, seemed to deflate as she understood that she’d missed him, again.

She gripped the railing and looked out over the city. For a brief moment she could see herself hopping over the railing and to her death, but that was absurd. She’d only jump over the railing if there was a cable rigged up so that she would make it to the street before him, to head him off.

Liz had said he was taking the red-eye...somewhere. That he was leaving right after the party. He’d jumped the gun and left early.

That’s what she had to do! The thought materialized, vibrant and clear, and so simple. She’d commandeer Francesca’s car--she probably had an expensive, very fast sports car--and speed through traffic like a maniac until she made it to the airport. She’d leave the car parked at the entrance and run inside, and then...

And then she’d get stopped by airport security. They didn’t just let you run through the airport like they used to. Not like in the movies. But if this were a movie, she’d find a way.

And just as she was forming a plan to knock out a flight attendant and sneak through security wearing her uniform, she heard Kevin’s voice, thick with laughter, drifting to her from the shadows.

“Step away from the edge, little girl.”

“Kevin!” She hated how happy and grateful she sounded. And she was mad at him. “You’ve been hiding there the whole time?”

“You’ve only been standing out here for maybe a minute.” He walked out of the shadows, looking so very good in a tux that Susan forgot why she was angry with him. “But you should’ve seen your face. Looked like you were hatching a scheme to rob Fort Knox.”

Susan shut her eyes and tried to think. What was she doing out there again? It was freezing. No one stood on a balcony this time of year. Especially in evening wear. Her entire body shivered from the cold gusts swirling about her.

“You’re freezing,” Kevin said, shrugging off his tuxedo jacket and wrapping it and his arms around Susan.

Susan felt more than just warm, she felt on fire, and having his big strong arms around her made her heart race and her mind go blank. His scent filled her lungs and made her mouth water, starving for the taste of him. Involuntarily, she pressed herself against him. And maddeningly, he stepped away, out of her reach.

“So you’ve come out of seclusion. Was it just curiosity about what design beat yours?” He stood there, his arms folded over his chest, the gleaming white of his shirt luminous in the moonlight.

“Your design is stunning. You deserved to win.”

“You know, that’s the problem with you...” Kevin stopped and shook his head. “What did you say?”

“You deserved to win. Your design is amazing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. Are you sick or something?”

Susan shook her head. “No. I feel great.” She moved closer to Kevin. Just being near him was making her warm all over, to hell with the bitter cold winds. “I feel better now that you’re here.”

Even in the dark, with the moon as their only light, Susan could see Kevin’s eyes filling with want. Then he looked up and moved back another step.

“What do you mean, now that I’m here? I’ve been here the entire time. You’re the one who left.”

Susan felt a hot wave of anger rise up and roil in her chest, searing her lungs with its intensity. She charged forward, her finger jabbing hard into Kevin’s chest. “You don’t get to say anything about leaving!” She started beating on his chest with her fists, and he grabbed her by the wrists.

“Whoa, wait a minute. What are you talking about?”

Since pushing against Kevin proved to be fruitless--he wasn’t budging--Susan pushed herself away from him, stumbling backward. When she spoke again her voice trembled, and each word had the heightened edge of a hysterical sob.

“You’re the one who left me! You just left, got on a goddamn plane and left.” Susan’s emotions crashed around her, shattering like pieces of crystal on the ground. She took some deep breaths, panting. “You left me all alone!”

She sounded freaking hysterical. She held her hand over her mouth, trying to hold her grief in. All that grief she’d been holding back for six whole months. Grief over Kevin leaving her. She was shaking so violently she was sure she was going to lose it.

“You weren’t alone.” His voice sounded hollow in the darkness. “Liz was there. I wouldn’t have left if you’d been alone.”

“What a pal,” she said, losing control. “Where’d you read that? In
GQ
? That it’s okay to leave the woman you’ve been bedding high and dry as long as she’s got a friend on hand to cry to! Hell, she thought I was crying about goddamn Mark!”

Kevin stood there in the dark, his eyes wide and very bright in the moonlight; they seemed to tremble. “I didn’t know you cried.”

“Because you left!”

Kevin straightened and shook his head, closing his eyes. “Yeah, but you certainly didn’t try to follow me. Hell, you didn’t so much as text me for a whole month. What was I, just an afterthought?”

Susan tore his tuxedo jacket from her shoulders and threw it at him, spitting her next words at him. “So, I’m inconsiderate for holding myself back to give you time. What a bitch I am! But since you didn’t even text me again for six fucking months, what the hell does that make you?”

They were standing so close, Susan seething, her eyes burning with rage, Kevin staring down at her, looking guilty. Susan didn’t wait for him to say anything, she just started yelling at him, not caring what she said. “And I couldn’t even tell Liz. I couldn’t tell her that I’d started lying to her. And then I started seeing that shrink Dr. Garvin, and I bored her so badly that even
she
broke up with me!”

Kevin laughed, just a little laugh, and he cleared his throat. But he leaned back and smiled as he laughed harder and bigger, until his chest shook.

“It’s not funny!” Susan could feel the tears that had begun to sting her eyes suddenly evaporate. She was so angry with Kevin that she was a heartbeat away from slugging him.

“Your therapist broke up with you? How does that even happen?”

Susan’s mouth tightened into a thin line, and she knew she was scowling something fierce. “Instead of talking to her about my problems, I talked to her about work.”

Kevin gave out a whoop and clapped his hands together. “Yeah, that would do it.”

“It’s not funny!” But even to Susan it did seem pretty funny, and her voice didn’t fool even her. “It’s really not.”

Kevin had taken one step forward and was now close to Susan, looking down on her with those burning eyes, his unique Kevin-scent permeating her senses and soaking her brain with him. She made a fist with her hand, ready to punch him in the chest, but instead she opened her hand and hesitantly, delicately, placed it over his heart, feeling it beating against her palm. Hard and fast and strong. She gripped the smooth white cotton of his shirt as he reached out and took her into his arms again. She shook but couldn’t tell if she was just cold or if her emotions had just gone wild.

Suddenly he was kissing her. His mouth so wet, so gentle, so very delicious. Better than she had remembered. Better than she had even dreamed about late at night when she woke in a sweat with the sheets twisted around her legs. His hands slid up her rib cage and around her back, pulling her into him until her breasts pressed hard against his heaving pecs. She felt their bodies melding together as he picked her up in his arms to kiss her all the deeper, all the wetter, his tongue slipping into her mouth, flicking against her tongue, making her whimper with want.

Abruptly he pulled away, breaking their lip-lock, making her whimper all the louder, like a puppy begging for a treat.

He was holding her at arm’s length, looking hard into her eyes.

“I’ve got to know, before we go any further--” His voice quivered as he spoke, and he paused for a moment, his expression nervous. “I’ve got to know that you love me.”

Was he asking her a question? Susan’s mind was still bending and swirling around in her head, still drunk from the kiss. And hadn’t she already told him she loved him, that she was in love with him?

The look on Kevin’s face told her she hadn’t.

Oh, right, they’d started fighting instead.

Susan grabbed hold of the untied black bow-tie that hung around his neck and pulled him closer to her.

“Yes, Kevin Mathew Jacobs, I really do love you.” And she pulled him the rest of the way to her, until her lips crushed his, and he was whimpering this time.

She feasted on Kevin’s beautiful mouth.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and his hands glided down the back of her dress, cupping her bottom as he pulled her further into him. Susan felt something burst into flame inside her, worse than any burning she’d ever had for him. This was hot enough to kill, it was going to incinerate her on the spot.

Kevin’s lips were no longer kissing her, and his arms were disentangling her from him. The sudden loss of contact made her both annoyed and confused. Did he want her or not? Or was this all just some joke to him? She could feel the heat of her want change, flickering back to the heat of being pissed at him.

Kevin stepped back and held her where she was standing, just for a moment, and he knelt on one knee. He reached up and grabbed absently at the thin air over his heart. Susan felt the skin between her eyes crinkle.
Is he having a heart attack?

Kevin looked down to where his hand was still searching for something, and he made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a grunt. “Don’t move!” he said, springing to his feet and grabbing the tuxedo jacket Susan had taken off and thrown at him. He jogged back, skidding to a stop right where he’d been kneeling, and fell to one knee again, this time reaching into the pocket of the jacket and pulling out a small black velvet box, which he opened and held out to Susan.

His voice was rasping with exertion, but his words were crystal clear. “Marry me.”

Susan stood stone still for a few beats, not knowing whether she should answer or not. Had it been a question? Or had he just told her to? Either way, Susan was going to say yes, yet she couldn’t quite get enough air in her lungs to say the word.

“Not for any of the reasons I could think of, but because you really want to be my wife.”

Wife? The word seemed to glow and shimmer in the moonlight. The way Kevin seemed to be moving closer, even though he was still on one knee, made Susan’s heart flutter in her chest. That’s when she realized she was moving closer to him, and that she was now on her knees, looking up into his beautiful face, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath.

“Of course I want to be your wife.” She leaned in to kiss him.

Kevin leaned back, pressing his forefinger against her puckered-to-kiss lips. “That was a yes, right?”

Susan smiled against the press of his finger and nodded, springing up and kissing him deep and hard and wet, tasting him as if it were the first time, and he was the only thing she wanted in the world.

Somehow Kevin slipped the ring out of the box and onto Susan’s finger. Somehow he got her off the terrace and through the crush of the party and down to the lobby where Francesca’s car was waiting for them, the driver holding the door open as they wafted out on a stingingly cold gust of winter wind neither of them seemed to feel.

After the driver closed the door and jogged around to angle himself into the driver’s seat, he said, “Mrs. Costa said to take you two wherever you want to go…so, where to?”

Susan and Kevin were already lip to lip, arms wrapped about each other, her legs swung up into his lap. Kevin disengaged his lips from hers long enough to smile and tell the driver, “Four twenty-nine East Coulter Ave.”

Susan smiled. “My place?”

“I’ve been wanting to have you in your own bed ever since the first time in Cancun.”

She licked her lips and smiled.

God, he
’s
something else.
She was about to ask herself if she’d even made her bed, but as Kevin leaned in and kissed her, again and again and again, whether she made her bed or not, whether there were dirty clothes strewn all over the floor or not, it didn’t matter. Having Kevin in her bed--and tonight--that was all that mattered.

~*~

Kevin stood behind Susan as she tried to unlock her door. His hand on the back of her neck, his strong, warm fingers slowly caressing her flesh, caused ripples of delight to travel up and down her body. Needless to say, Susan wasn’t going to get the key in the lock anytime soon. Kevin took the key from her trembling hand and inserted it into the lock and turned. The door swung open and Susan just stood there, as if Kevin’s fingers had magically paralyzed her.

“Would you like to go inside?” Kevin finally whispered, his breath hot as it tickled her ear. “Or would you rather make love in the hall?”

Susan gasped as Kevin’s hand moved from her neck and trailed down her bare back. Susan nodded her head toward the door. Kevin gave her a faux look of disappointment. “And I was so looking forward to giving Red over there--” He motioned behind him, to the neighbor across the hall. “--a show.”