Conversion Book Two: Bloodlines Read online

  He opened his eyes and sighed. “I know.”

  He both stared at each for a moment longer and then he leaned in to give me a goodbye kiss. I allowed myself to get lost in it, to forget the downside of dating a vampire and remember that there were advantages too. And Teren made forgetting pretty easy – he was an unbelievable kisser. His mouth and tongue could do things that I was beginning to believe were part of his supernatural ability, for no human I’d ever kissed had made me feel it through every cell in my body. As my fingers were sliding through his thick hair and the backs of my legs were bumping up against my bed, he started chuckling. I broke contact with him, a little surprised to find my heart was racing and my breath was noticeably faster. Like I said, great kisser.

  His hands came up to cup my cheeks, gently pushing me back from where I’d been attempting to find those lips again. “I should get going.” He chuckled again, his eyes sweeping over my room. “Let, you get to work on your affairs.”

  My body could have cared less about my affairs and I knew he was completely aware of that. I tried to kiss him again, but he held me back, a smug look on his face. I sighed irritably and pulled away. “Fine.” Using all my willpower to step away from him, I gave him a scathing glare. “You don’t play fair.”

  He laughed and reached out for me. I ignored the gesture. Smirking at me, he shook his head and walked over to give me a platonic kiss on the cheek. In my ear he whispered, “You drive me crazy, every second of every day. You have no idea how much I’ll be missing you tonight.” He stepped into me, his body pressing against my side. I closed my eyes and held my breath. His breath, cool on my ear and neck, gave me delightful shivers. “If I can make you feel, just once, what I feel constantly…well, I think that’s very fair.”

  His lips had just closed around my ear lobe when I groaned and turned my head to find him. But he wasn’t there. Feeling like my head and body were in some weird, semi-drugged state, I blinked and looked around my empty bedroom. Faintly, I could hear laughing coming from downstairs and then my front door opening.

  “Jerk!” I yelled through the open door where my honey had just blurred away, leaving me all riled up and alone. Only soft chuckling answered me as my front door closed.

  I sighed and shook my head as I heard the electric hum of his car pulling away. Sighing yet again, I decided forgoing all the things on my to-do list and doing the one thing my body really wanted now. I took a bath.

  Monday morning began with me fighting the urge to throw my alarm clock across the room. It had been a long time since I’d needed to use one. While Teren’s and my time on the ranch wasn’t exactly Club Med, it had been a true vacation in the sense that we hadn’t needed to be awake at a certain hour. We’d usually woken at breakfast time, so I could partake in Alanna’s wonderful cooking, but it had been a leisurely, relaxing wakeup. Not the jarring, forced-from-sleep annoyance that was an alarm going off by my ear.

  Grunting some sort of nonverbal objection, I turned it off and stood up to get ready for the day. I dusted off and got into my work clothes, a nice formfitting pantsuit with an adorably fitted jacket, and curled my wavy hair, leaving it loose around my shoulders. With a nice pair of heels and my jacket open, showing off my deep cut, lacy top (which was about as sexy as I could dress at work, without getting a warning from the HR department), I grabbed a quick breakfast and hopped into my cute little yellow VW bug. I smiled as I drove it to work; I’d missed my cheery little car.

  I started feeling a little less cheery as I pulled into the parking lot and my stomach started questioning my meal choice. I sat in my car, breathing slowly and carefully through my mouth. I prayed for my stomach to settle down and accept the food I’d given it. Seriously…we needed to work together on this, or this pregnancy was going to be a long one.

  Finally, my body agreed with my head and the nausea passed. With one last quick exhale, I slapped on my professional face and headed for the doors. I was assaulted long before I ever got to my cubicle. A striking blonde squealed and wrapped her arms around me. The sudden movement jarred me back a step and my stomach firmly objected the quick shift in direction.

  As my face surely went through several shades of green, I hugged the woman hugging me for dear life, praying yet again, not to lose it. The beautiful woman pulled away from me, a happy glow on her pixyish face. “Emma! God, we’ve missed you. How was your vacation?”

  I breathed as nonchalantly as I could through my mouth, as I quickly threw on a bright smile. “It was great, Tracey. How were things here?”

  She tossed her hand out in a casual manner. “Oh, the same.” We continued down the aisle way to my office, my stomach relaxing into normalcy as we walked and Tracey subtly pointing at various people that we worked with. “Stressed over a bad investment. Wife had a baby last week. Bitchy…just ‘cuz. Having an affair…” she pointed at a petite brunette and then looked around until she spotted a middle-aged man near the break room, “with him.” She turned back to me and barely contained a giggle. “I totally heard them going at it in the supply closet last week.”

  I quickly looked away from the woman as she met eyes with me, shaking my head at Tracey and her stream of gossip. As we reached my home away from home, she leaned against my wall. “How is Teren’s dad?” Her face turned down into a perfect frown.

  I turned into my office here at Sampson, Neilson and Peterson, and opened the bottom drawer of my desk to shove my still pretty full purse in it. I hadn’t gotten any better at not carrying my life around with me. I smiled at Tracey’s question, as I straightened and turned back to her. Teren’s dad falling ill was the excuse we’d given everybody for our extended time away. It had worked pretty well as a reason for Teren to be gone for such a long time. I mean, it wasn’t like we could tell everyone that Teren was dying and reanimating, and he’d needed to be away from innocent people when he did it.

  “He’s…as good as new.” I shrugged my shoulders as Tracey smiled. “You’d never even know that anything had ever been wrong with him.” I started to giggle a little, as I thought of Teren and not his dad. You really wouldn’t know he’d passed away, at least, not by looking at him. Tracey cocked her head at my seemingly inappropriate laugh, but didn’t say anything. I had a habit of laughing at odd times and my friends were just used to that about me.

  “That’s great, Emma. Tell Teren I’m glad his dad is alright.”

  A loud throat clearing behind Tracey shifted both of our attentions that way. Behind her was a large, dowdy looking woman who always reminded me of an unpleasant version of a fifties sitcom wife. She always dressed in long skirts and shapeless blouses and even had a large string of pearls around her plump neck. Her brown hair, that had mostly turned gray ages ago, was always pulled into a tight, unforgiving bun that complimented her general attitude. She tended to have a perpetual scowl, and seemed to look at everyone as if they were doing something inappropriate.

  Clarice. She was unfortunately my boss, and was currently looking at Tracey with undisguised malice. She was not Tracey’s boss. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she grumbled to her.

  Tracey grinned back at me. “Have fun. Glad your back.” She smirked at Clarice and then left me alone with the sour woman.

  “So, you remembered where the building was. Kudos.” She handed me what had to be a two foot stack of paperwork. As I grabbed it, she pointed to an equally large stack of papers already sitting on my desk. “These are all new clients that came in while you were gone.” Her flat lips sort of turned up into a grin. “Familiarize yourself, and get them all entered into the system.”

  And with that, she turned and left. No, we missed you, welcome back. No, did you have a good time. No, did everything turn out okay? No, did your boyfriend knock you up while you were gone? Nope, nothing but professionalism from Clarice.

  I sighed and sat down, adding the large stack to the stack already there. I knew coming back would be a lot of work, but, damn. The accounting firm I worked at was an up and co
ming one and it seemed like they’d taken off, right as I’d left. As I started sifting through the paperwork, I hoped I’d run into an interesting file – maybe a celebrity or socialite or something.

  Just as I was wondering how Teren was fairing at his first day back at the magazine, I heard my phone buzzing in my purse. Clarice tended to frown on cell phones at the desk, but quickly looking into her office directly across from mine and seeing her absent, most likely helping her boss, Mr. Peterson, I took advantage and opened the drawer to rifle through my bag and find it.

  Pulling out my cutely pink flip phone, I saw a text from Teren. ‘Miss you. How’s it going?’

  I glanced up at her office again and then quickly typed back a response. ‘Miss you too. I’m drowning in paperwork. You?’

  My phone buzzed in my hand, a second after I’d hit send. ‘Good, just finished my article. No fondling yet.’ I smiled and shook my head, both at the fact that he’d already whipped out an article, and that he was still teasing me about my admittedly overcautious fears. Just as I was about to respond, my phone buzzed again. ‘Are you coming over tonight? I can’t sleep alone again.’

  I quietly giggled at that and bit my lip, only responding with, ‘Yes.’

  His response was again a quick one, and I smiled at the image of him sitting at his desk and speed typing messages to me. ‘Good, I missed you…and the kids. Anymore sickness?’

  I sighed at his loving concern for me. ‘No…almost threw up on Tracey, but luckily didn’t. She wishes your dad well.’

  I pictured him laughing at my answer as his reply flashed on my phone. ‘I would have loved to hear how you’d explain away ralphing on her. I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll add Tracey’s wishes to my coworkers. My dad will get a big head, with how much sympathy he’s been receiving today.’

  I sighed happily as I thought of my tall, dark and sort of dreamy, undead man. Just as I was going to tell him I should get back to work, the phone buzzed again. ‘So…what are you wearing?’

  I laughed out loud to that and was startled to almost incontinence when a stack of even more papers slapped down on my desk. Breathing heavier, I raised my eyes to Clarice’s narrowed ones. “Since you have free time,” she nearly sneered, “here’s some reports I need copied…now.”

  “Sorry, yes, Clarice.” I gave her an apologetic smile as she huffily sauntered back to her desk. Typing Teren a quick goodbye and shoving my phone back in my purse, I got back to my expanded work pile.

  By the end of the day, I couldn’t believe how tired I was. I’d nearly forgotten what a full eight hours of work entailed. True, Teren and I had helped out on the ranch, and I’d fallen asleep from exhaustion more than once during our stay there, but there was something different about being outside in the fresh country air, helping to wrangle cattle with an assortment of super speedy, unnaturally strong vampires, than being in a small, fluorescently lit office space with paperwork up to your eyebrows. I knew it would get better as I got more caught up, but at the moment, shoveling cow poop again sounded fabulous.

  Tracey popped around to my side of the cubicle, no sign of fatigue on her sprightly face, and asked if I’d be coming back to the gym as well. Tracey and I had been taking kickboxing there a couple times a week for of a couple of years now. While I loved the workout, and the feeling of self-assurance it gave me, I was really too tired to contemplate moving that aggressively right now.

  “No, I think I’ll pass tonight.” I yawned halfway through my sentence and Tracey laughed at me.

  “Alright, Ben will be bummed.” She winked at me. “He’s subbing tonight.”

  I grinned at the look of love on her face. She had met Ben while he’d been subbing for our regular teacher during a kickboxing class. They’d hit it off right away and, despite a rocky patch, when Tracey had stupidly broken up with him while she needlessly suffered over figuring out what was only too obvious - that she was head over heels for him, they were still together.

  I yawned and grabbed my purse. “Tell him I said hi…Teren too.” Ben and Teren had hit it off right way too and were friends, I guess. As close as Teren was friends with anyone who didn’t know his secret. He had a natural tendency to keep people just slightly away from him. Honestly, he did that with me too sometimes, which had led to some pretty spectacular fights in these last seven months, but I did understand his reluctance to let people in; he never knew for sure who was going to stick around.

  Tracey laughed at my yawn again and nodded. “I will. See you tomorrow, Emma.”

  I watched her leave and another yawn escaped me. Wondering why I was so tired, I looked down at my still flat stomach. “Are you guys making me tired?” I murmured to myself.

  A throat clearing made me look up, startled that someone may have heard that. I wasn’t prepared to tell the world I was pregnant. I’d sort of like to get through the wedding part first…and I was still a little reluctant to bring that up too. Not that I was embarrassed, no way, but we were getting married fast, and I was only too aware that super fast weddings usually meant one thing, and I was fairly certain that if anyone asked me directly if I were pregnant, I’d blush and giggle and squeal like an imbecile.

  Clarice narrowed her eyes at me and shook her head. “You didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped…but you did a good job with what you managed to finish, I suppose. Don’t be late tomorrow.” With that, she waddled down the hall to the exit.

  I couldn’t help but smile, both that she hadn’t heard me talking to the embryos in my belly and that she’d just given me a compliment. True, it was very backhanded, but that’s what you got with Clarice – a tiny drop of honey with a huge dollop of vinegar. To keep working here, and remain sane, you learned to grasp that sweetness wherever you found it.

  Still smiling at the rare words of approval, I drove myself directly to Teren’s place. His car was in his half circle drive when I got there, and I’d no sooner shut off my car than he was standing at my door, opening it for me. I smiled at his super senses and his super sweetness, and let him pull me into a huge hug. I sighed as his arms wrapped around me, glad that our first days back had gone well, and considering that he hadn’t been staked at work, I’d say they went very well.

  We pulled apart from each other and I let my eyes travel down his well dressed body. It had been awhile since I’d seen him in anything but worn jeans and boots, and while he looked amazing in those clothes, I’d almost forgotten how nicely he cleaned up. His khaki slacks and crisp, light blue dress shirt were distractingly tight on him. He was…yummy.

  I bit my lip as I looked over the man who would eternally look…yummy. His hand came up to my cheek as my gaze traveled farther down his body. “You okay?” he whispered. That brought my attention back to his face and I looked up to see him frowning at me, concern in the blue depths. “You look exhausted,” he added.

  I sighed and smiled, leaning in to give him a quick kiss. “Yeah, I guess I am.” My fingers resting along his neck started threading through the short layers of hair in the back. He smiled as he gazed down at me. “I’ve been on vacation for too long, there was just a lot to take care of today.”

  He cocked his head at me and then swiftly swept me into his arms. I squeaked in surprise and then giggled and hugged him tighter. “Well, let me take care of you now then.”

  I settled my head into the crook of his neck and sighed contently. “Okay…”

  He chuckled and walked with me to his impressive home, not as impressive as his parents’ spread, but still, for highly sought after San Francisco real estate, it was a nice place. He effortlessly walked me up to the wrought iron and wood front door of his two-story home and held me with one arm, while opening the door with the other. I laughed that he hadn’t had to adjust me at all while he did that. Being around his strength, made me sort of feel like I was weightless, and that was a very good thing for a soon-to-be-mammoth girl to feel.

  He kicked the door closed behind us and walked me to the most comfortable couch in th
e world. He laid me down on the massive, white leather behemoth and wrapped me in a blanket, after kissing my forehead and removing my shoes. I smiled at his sweetness and grabbed his arm as he started to move away. The chill of his skin crept up my fingers, but the thrill of touching him made that chill feel warm as it traveled up my arm.

  He smiled as he looked down on me all snuggled on his couch. “I’m just going to make you something to eat,” he said softly.

  I nodded and tilted my head up and he obligatorily leaned in to kiss me. “What about you,” I muttered as his lips pulled away.

  “I was hungry after work, so I already ate,” he said as he straightened.

  I cocked my head, wondering what he’d had for dinner. His family generally seemed to only eat a few pints once a day, but Teren was still pretty new, and needed to eat a couple times throughout the day. It wouldn’t hurt him or anything if he didn’t, he just got…grumpy, and tired. At the ranch, that wasn’t a big deal, there was lots of food, but here? He smiled at my silent concern. “Mom sent me home with a care package. I’m good for awhile.”