Naughty Temptations

Epilogue

EpilogueOne Year Later

Serena waddled down the corridor to the executive suites of Chase Industries, Inc. Stopping by Vanessa’s cubicle she dropped a small box on her friend’s desk.

Vanessa peeked under the lid and glanced up excitedly. “A whole box of blood chocolates? No way!”

Serena held a finger to her lips. “Don’t rat me out. I snagged one of the prototype boxes from the culinary lab.”

“Cool! Thank you so much, Serena. I’ve been dying to try these.” Vanessa was already popping one of the dainty-looking vampire chocolates shaped like a heart into her mouth. She rolled her eyes in pleasure, her fangs coming out just a touch. By now the sight of the occasional fang or two around the office was no big surprise to Serena.

“No problem. We women have to stick together on matters of chocolate. Female solidarity.”

She glanced at Caden’s closed office door. The glass wall partition was set to opaque so she couldn’t see inside. “I’ll just pop in and say hi.”

Vanessa’s mouth was stuffed with confection so she could only nod her response. She tried to say something but whatever she was saying came out muffled.

Serena smoothed the front of her bright yellow maternity top that made her feel as though she was a bloated bumblebee. Caden loved her in that color, however, so she wore it for him often. Along with pinks, pale greens, pastel blues, any happy color one might find emblazoned on an Easter egg, in fact.

She walked through the door of her husband’s office and found herself instantly wrapped inside his protective arms in welcome. She arched against him, enjoying the feel of him and his unique cool, wintergreen scent.

“Watch it, mister,” she smiled up at him when he finally lifted his head. We’re still on the clock and we all know what a stickler you are for conducting business by the book.”

He frowned, ignoring her quips. “Should you still be on your feet? I don’t like these long hours you’ve been working with the team. They’re efficient enough. We need to cut you back to part-time now that the due date is so close. You look pale. What did you eat for lunch? Your ankles look swollen. Here, sit down.”

She smiled as much at his rapid-fire questions as at the authoritative way he solicitously lowered her into a plush chair. He rested his hand with tender possessiveness on her swollen belly that looked ready to pop any second.

“He sounds just like you did when I was in my third trimester, Claude.” An amused female voice sounded from the other end of the office.

As soon as the words hit her keen ears, Serena instinctively scented the air with her sensitive nose. She detected two strangers in Caden’s office. One was a vampire. Definitely. The other smelled superhuman, like she did now after Caden changed her into his Blood Mate a few weeks after he destroyed Garoul.

Her mind snapped backward in time to a few months ago to when Caden’s sure lips and fingers on all the most private and sensitive parts of her body had her begging for his fangs on her neck and her inner thigh. On his bed in his Malibu fortress, he’d used a weapon more powerful than mind thrall to take her as his Blood Mate. Quite simply, he’d seduced her mercilessly until the momentous occasion occurred, much to her delight.

She had to admit he’d played his hand well to win her complete trust and surrender in the weeks after he’d collapsed at her feet, smoking from the sunlight but able to withstand the rays longer than Garoul had thanks to the drops of her blood in his system. Even so, he’d been ready to burst into ash until she’d pulled this smoking body into the foyer and slammed the door.

Somehow, she’d half-dragged, half-carried him to a sofa in his study on the lower floor of his home. She’d had a hunch that a few drops of blood from her still oozing hand would perk him right up. It did, just as soon as she’d pressed the blood dripping from her fingers to his mouth.

He’d sucked powerfully at her cuts. She felt herself flow into his mouth, felt him grow stronger under her hand, and knew all at once that she’d done the right thing.

Within seconds, his was completely healed. He also had a raging hard on for her he couldn’t hide if he tried, not that he bothered to conceal it. When he took her in his arms for their first proper kiss, the heartfelt lust he thrust into her mind when his tongue invaded her mouth almost made her come right there.

Yet in spite of their explosive s****l chemistry, he had refused to penetrate her, much to her wild objections. He hadn’t allowed either of them full release until, writhing under him with her legs wrapped around his waist, she’d pleaded to be his for all time.

He’d made her repeat those words many times over weeks of nights before finally obliging both of their desires. Naked and poised above her nude and spread-eagled body, his fangs had tenderly teased the excited gooseflesh of her neck that she offered him without reservation. He’d accepted the gift with reverence, almost veneration, when biting and thrusting inside her in a beautiful double penetration of his fangs in her neck and his c**k in her p***y.

She’d never felt so alive, or so full of love, as when she knew she belonged to him entirely from that moment on.

Now, scenting strangers in his office, Serena rose and whirled around with near preternatural speed in spite of her big belly. She saw a handsome couple standing at the opposite end of Caden’s large office.

The man was clearly a vampire. Handsome in a mesmerizing way and impeccably dressed in sporty casual attire, he appeared to be in his late thirties with eyes a little darker green than Caden’s.

The woman looked to be in her early thirties. She was beautiful but not in a perfect, stiff vampire way. She had an easy smile and a scent that was more akin to human, yet different, thanks to the Blood Change. She was clearly the male vampire’s Blood Mate.

Serena’s eyes widened in pleasure and flashed to Caden, silently full of questions.

Your parents arrived in town early?

They did. I was just about to call and tell you.

Caden broke off their mind link for the moment and drew her toward them. “Serena, I’d like to introduce you to Claude and Emily Chase.”

She came forward to greet her in-laws.

“Oh! I’ve heard so much about you both.”

“As we have about you.” Emily smiled a roguish tomboy’s grin and kissed her on both cheeks, European style. Serena liked her immediately.

Serena extended her hand to shake Claude’s hand but he lifted the back of it to touch his lips with an easy, old world charm that men of the twenty-first century could never pull off. “We’re sorry we haven’t visited sooner, my dear.” She couldn’t quite place his accent, but it definitely wasn’t American. Or Transylvanian, for that matter.

“Claude’s on the EU Vampire Council and I’m afraid it keeps him busier than I’d like. But we couldn’t miss the birth of our first grandchild.”

They sat and chatted amicably for a while longer with Caden and Serena before the other couple rose to take their leave.

“We’ll see you both tonight for dinner, I hope?” Emily made the invitation sound warm and hopeful, not at all pushy.

Serena grinned. “I certainly hope so. I’m eating for two now. And I do!” Indeed, her appetite had been incredible ever since her first trimester. And the cravings! Forget peanut butter and pickles. She couldn’t get enough steak tartare and popcorn, of all things.

After Caden’s parents departed, Serena turned to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I adore them. They are going to be wonderful grandparents,” she quipped. “I have tons of questions for them. Hey! I’ll finally find out how old you are.” She shot him a speculative look. “Actually, you don’t look much younger than they do.”

He kissed her neck lingeringly, letting her feel a hint of fang scraping across her tender skin. Just the way he did whenever they had s*x, even this late into her pregnancy. Her toes curled recalling how he’d entered her from behind that morning, his arm draped possessively across her pregnant stomach, waking her from a delicious dream into an even more delicious reality.

“I’ll spare you digging around for family details at dinner,” he said in mock surrender. “My parents met at a society ball in New York City in 1899. My mother was an eighteen-year-old debutante. She made my father chase her for two years until she agreed finally to be his Blood Mate. I was born in 1903.”

“Hmm. Maybe I should have made you chase me for years, instead of giving in so quickly to be your Blood Mate. A woman should play hard to get. But you’re such an old timer, a nimble young thing like me might have gotten away.”

“Never.” He caught her up in his arms, caressing her rounded belly. “I’d have gone mad if you had kept me waiting any longer than you did. I still can’t believe you’re mine. Forever.”

“Well don’t forget, I did blackmail you into the whole thing to begin with. So I get all the credit.”

“As long as I’m the only vampire you ever try to blackmail, you can have anything you want from me, Mrs. Chase.”

She smiled, seeing their limitless future in his green eyes. It was full of sunlight, with no shadows in it.