Last Kiss from the Vampire (4 page)

They currently run the diner where Megan worked. Steve handles the day shift and her the evening. He never did figure out why being a vampire still allowed him to function in the day and whey Megan continued to need his blood. But they have a bid in on a house not far from where they live now and are planning on buying the diner from the current owners.

THE END

BONUS PREVIEW OF “SHADE OF DARKNESS”….

Bev is my hero.  She has been since we met, the first day on my new job.  A new job was always a chance to start over for me, but working at Pendleson & Meyer was doubly so, since I’d relocated to a new city.  I’d been there for four years, and Bev was the only true friend I’ made—men included.  So much for fresh starts.

“How about a steak dinner instead of hitting the gym?” Bev said, standing by my office door, her oversized purse slung over her shoulder.  “It’s a rhetorical question,” Bev added.  “Steak dinner is the correct answer.”

And that’s part of the reason Bev is my hero.

“Bev,” I said.

“Yes Liv?”

“How about a nice steak dinner instead of going to the gym?”  I gathered my things and called down for a company car to drive us.

“Hmm,” Bev replied.  “Great minds
do
think alike.”

To me, skipping the gym was no biggie.  I’ve gone to the gym for years, off and on, but I’ve long since gotten rid of my teenage fantasy of one day being a size six.  I’m a big woman.  That’s that.  Get over it.  But Bev loves the gym—not for the exercise, but for the eye candy, and the possibilities.  Bev is always open to new possibilities, and as a result, she often encounters them.

One of the biggest reasons Bev is my hero is that we are the same size.  My size sometimes bothers me, but her size never bothers her.  Somehow Bev managed to avoid all the self-consciousness associated with being a plus-size gal in a skeleton-girl world.  Although I always try to learn from Bev, I’m not always successful.

The company limo brought us into the industrial side of the city.  Well, it used to be the industrial area, but all the manufacturers had long since vacated for cheaper climes.  For a while, squatters, alkies, addicts, and artists were all that could be found below Seventeenth Avenue, by the river—those and the occasional street whore—but then the city became an appealing place to live again.  Gentrification had turned many of the factories and warehouses into condos, and some of the unsalvageable ones got torn down.  But the old Sugar Factory still stood tall in all its splendor, and it housed the best steakhouse in town—Vladstok’s.

The Sugar Factory was a monstrous complex, built of red brick that was blackened from soot and time.  Vladstok’s took up the first two floors.  There was talk of reclaiming some of the unused space, but Victor Vladstok, the owner of both the steakhouse and the Sugar Factory it sat in, did not seem interested in changing things.

Bev and I climbed out of the company limo and wished Stanley, our driver, a good night.  A long-coat wearing man, complete with military style hat, opened the front door to Vladstok’s for us.  His bearing was military erect, and he didn’t even crack a smile, but just stared with steely eyes straight ahead, as if he were guarding Buckingham Palace.

Part of the charm of Vladstok’s lay in the absolute devotion Victor Vladstok had not to change things.  There was an Old World elegance about the establishment, from the heavy draperies and marble busts along the walls, to the precise spiffiness of the wait-staff, and their punctilious attention to detail.

“Gin martini, Liv,” Bev asked me as she dropped the company credit card on the black marble bartop.  I didn’t answer.  Bev knew what I liked.  Besides, I was busy watching the middle-aged business man scoping me out.  He sat at one of the mahogany pub tables, a gin and tonic in his hand.  His eyes ran up and down my curves, and then returned to my midsection.  I was digging his attention until then.

Bev handed me my martini.  “Did you see the gray hair scoping you out?” she said softly.

“Yes,” I said, sipping at my drink.  “Chubby chaser.  Not interested.”

“Not interested?” Bev asked.  “Why the fuck not?  He likes your body, clearly.”

“Bleh.  He likes my body like a fetishist likes a sex doll.  I want more than that.  Chubby chasers are just using women like us for sex.”

“Yeah, so?” Bev replied.  “That’s what I’d be doing too.  Using them for sex.  Seems fair to me.”

A waiter cleared his throat.  “Ladies, your table is ready.  May I take your drinks?”  The dapper waiter with the slicked back hair placed both our martinis on his polished tray and then glided through the crowded restaurant, guiding us to our table.

We sat in the same spot, every time.  It was up two steps from the main floor, and against the brick wall.  Bev loved that table because it afforded a view of the maître d’s podium.  It wasn’t the maître d’ who interested Bev.  Oftentimes Victor Vladstok would check in with the maître d’.  Bev couldn’t get enough of Victor Vladstok.

It was Bev’s lucky night.  Victor Vladstok not only went over to check on the maître d’, but he stayed at the podium while the maître d’ went off to do something Victor Vladstok directed him to do.

Victor Vladstok was, hands down, the most handsome older man I’d ever seen.  He was always meticulously attired, with an Old European sensibility.  His pencil thin mustache was always trimmed to perfection, his haircut was so consistent I could almost swear it was a toupee, his custom tailored suits fit him so exactly that they might have been his skin, and even his nails were manicured.  When he’d stop by our table—and he always stopped by our table—an aftershave that smelled stately and dignified wafted off him.

I’d totally drop my panties for Victor Vladstok.

“There is Mister Smooth,” I whispered to Bev.

“I know.  Order the rib eye.”

“That’s too much,” I said.

“Order it.  He loves to watch us eat.”

“Really?”

“Trust me,” Bev replied, tapping her fingernail against her forehead, pointing to her big brain.  “You won’t regret it.”

My goodness!  Bev was
so
right.  Victor Vladstok kept looking our way as Bev and I devoured our meal, and I swear the old gent had lust in his eyes!  My steak was rare, just the way I like it, and I sopped up the bloody juice with chunks of artisanal bread.  The dinner was a delight—as all dinners at Vladstok’s were—but the heat of Victor Vladstok’s gaze made it all the better.  I almost felt dirty, but that was part of the fun.

When our dinner was done, Victor Vladstok approached our table.  “Was everything to your satisfaction?” he asked.

“As always,” Bev answered.  I was too star struck.  Victor Vladstok never talked to guests.  Part of his cache in the finer dining society was his aloofness.  Yet here he was, talking to us.  Well, talking to Bev.  I played mute.

“I hope you’ll be partaking of dessert tonight.  We received the most delectable Black Sea port today, and I’d be offended if you didn’t sample it.”

“I’d love to taste you,” I said with a sigh, and then, a bit too late, heard myself.  “I’d love to taste it,” I restated.

Victor Vladstok was all Old World class—he acted as if he didn’t hear my Freudian Slip.  Bev caught it.  She had a grin that seemed wider than her face.

“Please,” Victor Vladstok said, “allow me the pleasure of escorting you to dessert.”  He pulled out my chair for me, and then Bev’s too.  Soon we walked alongside Victor Vladstok, each of us on an arm.

Victor Vladstok’s arm felt surprisingly strong.  He didn’t look like a man who would deign to visit something as pedestrian as a gym, but there was no denying the quiet power in his arm.  I couldn’t quite pin down Victor Vladstok’s age.  I’d estimate it as older than me, and younger than Mount Everest.  Walking beside him was like attending a Royal Dinner—we were awash in dignity and elegance.

Another one of the restaurant’s many charms was that dinner and dessert were served in separate areas.  I supposed that helped maximize the serving of four-hundred dollar steak dinners, but it also imbued the eating of dessert and drinking of port with an air of ritual that made the already delicious desserts so much sweeter.

Normally we’d climb the grand staircase to the dessert room, but Victor Vladstok led us instead to a small elevator off a side hall.  The elevator had the gate-type of door that was all brass and caged.  Once we were inside, he slid the door shut with a clang, and we watched the hallway sink down out of sight.

I knew from past experience that the dessert room was only one floor up from the main dining area, but the elevator ascended far further than that.  We must have traveled up almost four floors.

When the elevator finally stopped, we were clearly no longer in a public area of the old Sugar Factor.  A large oil painting of Victor Vladstok sat on the wall—or perhaps it was of an ancestor, judging by how old it looked.

“Are these your private quarters?” Bev asked.

He slid the elevator cage-door open.  “Yes, they are.  You are both in for something very special tonight.”

My goodness.  My panties were clinging to me now!

Chapter Two

“Victor,” Bev said, placing her hand on his, “may I call you Victor?”

“Please do me the honor.  Yes.”

“Victor,” Bev continued, “your taste it truly exquisite.  Who is your decorator?”

“This?”  Victor Vladstok swept his powerful hand about with a gentle grace and almost balletic ease, taking in the sumptuous room, which was lined with scarlet cushioned fainting couches and a carpet so lush that I wanted to kick off my heels and scrunch my toes into the deep red pile.  “This is a shadow of my former home.”

“Was it a castle?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, as if we were in a cathedral.

“So precious,” Victor Vladstok said, his cool hand patting my own.  “Yes, dear flower, it was a castle.  And it overlooked a river, much like this building, but it sat on a mountainside, where it had the illusion of floating above the clouds.  I loved it very much.”

“Why would you ever leave such a place?” Bev asked.

Victor Vladstok licked his lips, which I came to realize he did quite often, and lifted a crystal bell off the lace-covered tabletop.  He gave the lighted of shakes, and the crystal bell rang with a faint delicacy that I was sure no one but us could hear.

“If we do not change, we die,” Victor replied.  “Perhaps not the mortal death that relegates us to the hungry earth, but we die a spiritual death, the hell where nothing ever changes, and all is banality.  I left my castle in Europe because I wasn’t ready to meet my spiritual demise.”

I didn’t know if I believed what Victor said or if it was all hooey, but I didn’t care.  I’d listen to him read the phone book.  His diction was precise and his phrases stopped just short of being melodic and poetic, as if were as close to unreal as possible without actually being unreal.

“Bravo!” Victor said, clapping his sound hands loudly.  “Here is Wrensten with your dessert.”

Wrensten entered carrying a silver tray piled high with a samovar and all the necessary accouterment.  The distinctive aroma of rich Turkish coffee filled the air.  Wrensten’s straight-backed carriage lent a dignity to the dessert service that further fueled the magic of the night.  He placed a sifter of brandy and a tiny glass of Black Sea port before both Bev and myself, and then poured the Turkish coffee into our demitasse glasses with their brass bottoms.  Somehow Wrensten knew that Bev took two cubes of sugar, and I took none.  How carefully had Victor Vladstok been studying us?

“For Olivia,” Victor said—amazingly, he knew my given name, “we have a truffle infused crème brulee.”  My goodness!  If I had actually looked at a dessert menu, this was precisely the dessert I would have ordered.  I almost couldn’t wait for Bev to be served—I wanted to attack my crème brulee immediately.

“And for Beverly,” Victor said, “a praline ricotta cheesecake.”

Bev squeezed Victor’s fingers.  “How did you know?”

Victor placed his hand on mine, so that the three of us were joined, and he said, “If a gentleman is to grant a lady her heart’s desire, it is his business to know.”

Wrensten left us, backing all the way out of the parlor.  Victor didn’t watch him go.  Victor Vladstok only had eyes for Bev and me.  It was intoxicating.

The Black Sea port accented my truffle infused crème brulee perfectly.  I sipped it as daintily as my greedy gullet would allow, which was not terribly dainty at all.  Soon, it was all gone.  Victor Vladstok watched Bev and I as we ate our dessert.  His eyes glowed the whole time.

When we were done, Victor rang the crystal bell once more, and Wrensten appeared.  I got a much better look at Wrensten this time.  Wrensten was a handsome man, although he lacked the enigmatic charisma of our host.  White cotton gloves covered Wrensten’s hands, and what I found remarkable was how clean those gloves were.  Here was Victor Vladstok’s footman, who appeared to be constantly on call and busy, and yet his gloves were pristine.  It was quite curious.

My curiosity was tending not to stay put, though.  The martinis and port wine had seen to that.  I smiled at Wrensten, and although the saw my smile, he did not smile back.  Wrensten placed our brandies and coffees on a tray, and walked out through a different door.

“Ladies,” Victor Vladstok said as he rose to his feet without making a sound.  He didn’t push his chair out; he didn’t lean on the arms of the chair to rise; and he didn’t push back from the table.  It was eerie—his chair just seemed to slide out of his way when he chose to rise.  “Ladies,” Victor said, “after-dinner music is felicitous for the digestion.  Come with me.”

Bev and I exchanged glances, and she mouth “Oh my god” to me while fanning herself.  Yeah, I thought it was pretty hot too.

The parlor we had eaten in sat beside a two story room with deep black hardwood floors that were polished to a shine.  The brick walls rose in stately order up the two stories, and a dozen narrow windows rose up along the wall, providing a view of the river in the deep of night.  I looked up at the chandelier that hung over the center of the floor—it had real wax candles in it!  They were all lit, there must have been over fifty candles, and they cast a flickering warm light over the space.

A stringed quartet started playing once we entered.  I wondered how they could possibly read their music in such dim, intimate lighting.  Good thing I didn’t give voice to my question—I obviously didn’t travel around string quartets much—they had their songs memorized.  They must have, because there was no sheet music.  As I peered more closely, I could see them, matching shoes, matching tuxes with tails, and matching sunglasses.  The sunglasses looked nineteenth century in style.  The lenses were small black circles, and there were shades alongside that made the sunglasses into goggles.  And then it hit me.  Every member of the string quartet was blind!

“Ooh!” I squeaked.  Victor snaked his hand behind my back and gave me a side-hug that lifted my feet off the floor.  “Olivia,” he cooed, “Please forgive me, but I must dance with Beverly.  My impulses, they are so terribly strong, I cannot resist them.”  Goodness!  I couldn’t get over how strong Victor was, to pick me up with one arm like that.  I blushed as I realized how pleased I was to be made to feel tiny.

It all happened so fast.  I told Victor I didn’t mind at all, and then he released me and Beverly stood before me, her hands on my arms.  Beverly’s eyes were twinkling.  “Are you sure you don’t mind?” Beverly asked.

“No,” I said.  “Have fun, please.”

Beverly bounced in place like a schoolgirl.  My eyes drifted down to her rolling cleavage—Beverly had undone some buttons.  Her breasts were pink with flushed excitement.  Beverly’s palms clasped my cheeks, and she lifted my gaze to her.  “You are such a living doll,” Beverly said.  “You really are.  I love you!”  Beverly pressed her lips to mine.  My eyes must have popped wide in surprise, but that didn’t last long.  I forced my eyes shut and enjoyed Beverly’s kiss.  My hands settled on the pleasing curves of her hips, and I could feel our bosoms press together.  Beverly pulled back, smiling, and then darted back with another playful buss.

“I love you too, Bev.  Now go and dance.  I want to watch you dance with Victor.”

Beverly skipped off and away, straight into Victor’s arms.  They whirled around the dance floor as if they’d been dancing together for centuries.  A Victorian sofa with red tufted velvet sat on the far side of the dance floor.  I stepped quietly over to the sofa and sat in the center of it.  Victor and Bev were framed by the two story windows, lit by candlelight, and sailed around the ebony dance floor.  I was watching a fairy tale.

I didn’t know the song, but the quartet’s playing warmed my very soul.  It was almost as if I could cry.  Wrensten brought my brandy on a tray, and I took in my hand, swirling it absently as I watched Victor and Bev dance a waltz as if they were performance artists.

For the first time since we left the office, I was in familiar terrain.  Bev was always the bold one.  Bev always got the man she wanted.  I was often left alone, or left picking up men who weren’t my first choice.  Watching the athletic stride of Wrensten as he walked away, I realized that tonight might be different, and getting the number two man available was not such a bad thing.  Wrensten was actually quite handsome, especially in this candlelight.

I turned my gaze from Wrensten’s back, only to find Victor and Bev right in front of me.  Victor was smiling a wicked smile that made my blood churn.

“Dearest Olivia,” Victor said, “I only meant to have Beverly for the first dance.  Now, at present, I must dance with you.”  He extended a pale hand to me.

Flustered, I looked about for a place to put my brandy snifter, but found none.  Good.  That was almost an excuse.  “I’m afraid I can’t dance well,” I said.

“You don’t have to,” Bev said, her voice a flinty husk.  Her cheeks were red, and her eyes burned brightly.  Bev took my brandy from my hand with both hands, and holding it like a chalice, she drank from it, as if we were sharing communion.  “You’ve never had a dance partner like this before,” Bev said.  Out of reasons to object, I stood up.

I don’t know what surprised me more.  The fact that Bev pinched my ass, or the fact that I didn’t jump, and felt it was the most natural thing in the world for Bev to be groping me.

I decided to put it down as a dead-even tie.  No time to worry about that.  Victor Vladstok wanted to dance with me, and when Victor looked at me that way, I was compelled to come to him.