Sweetblood 02.5 - Enchanted by Blood Read Online Free

excuses to be with her. Not only was she one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met, but he loved her funny stories, her sharp wit, her passion for making things beautiful. He could walk into one of the many rooms in the mansion and know that Charlotte had done something to it, even if he couldn’t put his finger on what had changed. All he knew was that the room had a better feel.
    The fact that she cared about the smallest detail fascinated him. Things he’d never deemed important—the placement of a decoration, the way the lights needed to hang just so, the perfect pleat in a pillow—began to have meaning to him because they had meaning to her. Hell, he’d even gotten into the habit of doing the karate-chop thing to fancy pillows, because it was something she’d done.
    Everything about her was unexpected, including the first time they’d made love. He’d been helping her decorate one of a dozen holiday trees inside the mansion—each one with a different theme. As he recalled, this particular tree had a forest animal motif or something. She’d been on the ladder, reaching forward to hang a wooden squirrel ornament, when she lost her balance. He’d caught her before she hit the floor. He still remembered how she’d smelled that day. Like vanilla with a touch of evergreen tree. She’d even had pitch on her fingertips.
    Before he’d known what he was doing, he’d kissed her. And she’d kissed him right back. The next moment, one hand was sliding under her red cashmere sweater and the other went to her tight little bottom. When she responded by curving her hips against his and wrapping her arms around his neck, it was all over.
    Thank God they’d been in the library. He’d kicked the door closed, locked it and set her down roughly on the edge of the desk. Before he’d even unzipped his trousers, she’d lifted her skirt and removed her panties. He could still remember her fingers digging into his backside and the beautiful sound she’d made when he—
    “Hello. Anyone in there?”
    He blinked to find Charlotte looking at him, an ice pack on her wrist. The waitress was looking at him, too, her order pad out, her pencil poised above it.
    And he had one monster hard-on beneath the paper napkin in his lap. Shit.
    “What was the question?” He crossed his legs, put a hand casually over his knee.
    “It’s a complicated one,” Charlotte said. “It goes something like this—‘Can I take your order’?”
    Smart-ass. He laughed, balled up his napkin and tossed it at her. “What are you having?”
    “I’m fine with just coffee.”
    To the waitress he said, “I’ll have two eggs, over easy, with a side of bacon and an orange juice.” Ordering a meal would stretch the time he had with her. He waited until the waitress left to address Charlotte again. “So tell me, what you were doing walking alone on the streets at night?”
    “I wasn’t. Not really.”
    “Well, it sure looked that way when I saw you.” What the hell had she been thinking anyway? He knew precisely the kind of filth that roamed the streets at night and Charlotte had no business leaving herself vulnerable to it.
    She told him about her friend leaving her stranded at the night club and about following a group of women almost to her car.
    “Almost?” he asked her. “Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
    “Isn’t it supposed to be close? ” She lifted an eyebrow as if to taunt him, her eyes sparkling with mischief over the rim of her coffee mug.
    “Excuse me?”
    “The expression is, ‘close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.’ Not almost. ”
    He’d forgotten how she’d loved being right and pointing out how he was wrong about things that didn’t matter. Just like his grandmother, she was a trivia hound and a member of the grammar police. Which was probably why the two had gotten along so well. His grandmother had been sorely disappointed when he’d told her about wiping Charlotte’s