Vampire Cowboy Read Online Free Page A

set the bowl of Mrs. Timmons’ chicken on the blanket and unwrapped the rolls. “Looks like there’s a whole lot!” she said, licking her lips.
    Daniel stared at her for a few seconds before setting out dinner plates and silverware for each of them. She was feeling uncommonly cheerful.
    “This is like something in a book,” she said. This is all so romantic. And Mr. Hastings is ever so polite along with being so good-looking. I’m sure he would be quite a sight if I could get him out of those sissified clothes. I’d run my hands all over that big chest of his . He’d bend down and kiss my breasts. She blushed at the thoughts—where had they come from? Her imaginings usually weren’t that vivid.
    The way he looked at her was making her breasts ache for those kisses she’d imagined, making her whole body yearn for his touch. She wanted to undo the buttons of her gown all the way down to the bottom, to open it wide to him. She unbuttoned the top button. Why am I feeling like this? There’s chicken here I need to eat. She undid another and then the next one. She felt compelled to move closer to him, considered climbing right into his lap. But I hardly know him, how can I? That didn’t matter. She needed to put her arms around his neck and…
    Before she could act, Daniel turned away suddenly as though annoyed, and immediately those very improper sensations and thoughts paled beside her need for the chicken and rolls. She did her buttons back up and went back to having a pleasant time at a picnic on this soft blanket with this intriguing stranger, gobbling the chicken and rolls just as fast as she could.
     
    Daniel stopped himself in time and looked away from her, breaking the spell. He had some power over the desires of mortals, had used some of that power on her to make her agree to an evening picnic. But he didn’t want to use it. Not on this woman. Not now. He was annoyed at himself that he had, albeit for only a brief moment, compelled her to lust for him.
    “I’d venture a guess that you are extremely fond of fried chicken,” he said, fighting to keep his voice normal. “And champagne. May I refill?” She held out her glass and he poured some of the sparkling liquid into it.
    “The more you drink it, the better it tastes,” she said, drank half of it and then took a big, savage bite out of a roll. It would be easy—too easy—by simple force of will to make this woman desire him. He wanted her on her own terms. He wanted her to desire him simply because she did, not because he compelled her to do so, as he had so many others long ago. He hoped that she would come to desire him as he did her. Soon.
    He wanted to feed and he could remember no one from whom he wanted to feed as urgently as he wanted her blood. But not now and not by using his will to compel her.
    She looked up at him, nodding and smiling, although she didn’t stop eating. His heart began a loud staccato in his ears as he felt a stirring of real carnal desire for her. Something he hadn’t felt for a long time. He desperately wanted to touch her, to run his fingers through that black-as-night hair, to explore the sweet curves of her waist, of her bottom, to cup those round breasts. He yearned to kiss and lick and suck and finally to drink . But he would wait and see if any answering interest developed on her part.
    Eliza swallowed, polished off her champagne and said, “This is so delicious.” He smiled at her. It had been more than two centuries since he had become the blood-drinking creature he was now, and all those years of compelling women to want him had dulled his desire, made him feel like a monster, a puppet master. Sex for himself, he’d decided long ago, had been spoiled for eternity, reduced like the feeding to an occasional necessity to be dealt with as efficiently as possible.
    It had become offensive to him to simply take the blood he needed. Thus he preferred to use women who could be paid, making sure afterward that