Love at First Bite Bundle Read online

  Even one as sweet and lush as Nikki Braxton.

  Particularly one as sweet and lush as Nikki.

  The way she’d stared up at him, as if he were a man rather than a monster—as if he were the man—made him forget his past and the torment that ate at his soul.

  But he wasn’t a man.

  It was a truth he’d managed to escape for a few blissful moments, but it was back. In the pitch-black blanket of darkness that engulfed him. And the burned flesh that made his head throb. And the bloodlust that gnawed away inside of him. While he’d satisfied his carnal appetite, he’d denied the need to drink.

  Barely.

  Jake forced aside the unsettling thought and focused on the exhaustion tugging at his body. He needed to sleep. Now more than ever. It was Saturday morning. He had exactly eight days—the following Sunday—until his sire returned to Skull Creek.

  As he’d done every morning since he’d started his journey to hunt down the vampire who’d cursed him, he replayed the various outcomes of their final meeting. Death. Destruction. Freedom.

  While Jake had never seen the curse broken with his own two eyes, he knew it could be done. He’d met a man just ten years ago who’d claimed he’d once been a vampire. He’d killed his own sire and, in doing so, had freed himself and all the others who’d been turned by that one vampire. It was like a computer virus. Destroy the mainframe and kill the virus at its source.

  Jake had never put much faith in people, until he’d become a vampire. He could look into someone’s eyes and tell if they were lying.

  The man had been telling the truth.

  His outrageous story had been the fuel to jump-start Jake. He’d stopped feeling so doomed and started to think that maybe, just maybe, he could set things right.

  Garret, Jake’s business partner in his motorcycle design business, hadn’t been half as hopeful. Garret had been a vampire even longer than Jake and he was much more jaded. He hadn’t believed a word of the story—but then, he hadn’t been the one to stare into the old man’s eyes and see the truth.

  Despite Garret’s discouragement, Jake had started searching right away. He’d known little about his sire except a name. The name carved into the ornate Spanish dagger that had been used to slice open a vein and force the curse upon Jake.

  Sam Black.

  Jake had traced every Sam Black recorded in history, marking off names along the way until he’d reached his last prospect.

  This was it. The Sam Black.

  The skilled soldier who’d fought hand-to-hand in several battles for Texas independence. Sam had been notorious for taking souvenirs from his enemies—namely the ornate Spanish daggers supplied by Santa Anna himself.

  A bronze plaque sat in Town Square honoring the man who’d been killed by a band of renegade Mexican soldiers just as he’d arrived home from the battle of San Jacinto. The words To defend is the greatest honor had been carved into the plaque beneath the outline of a knife.

  A Spanish dagger.

  Jake fought the anger that whirled inside of him. His hands trembled and he willed his body to relax. He had to calm down. Even more, he had to sleep. To heal.

  He breathed, in and out, a steady motion that soon hypnotized. The blackness overwhelmed him.

  No tossing. No turning. No dreaming.

  He’d regretted the last many times since he’d turned into a vampire. But now, for the first time, he found himself thankful the sleep was so all-consuming.

  Jake had a hard enough time pushing Nikki Braxton out of his thoughts when he was conscious and fully aware of every reason why he couldn’t—wouldn’t—touch her again.

  Unconscious? He knew he didn’t stand a chance in hell.

  THE CLICK OF A LOCK pushed past the fog of sleep that gripped Nikki. The knob creaked and hinges groaned and she smiled. She rolled onto her back, her hand going to the empty sheets next to her. She patted the mattress.

  “It’s about time you came back to bed.”

  “If Jimmy John Charles couldn’t talk me into the sack—and he had flowers and candy and my favorite denture cream—you can damn well bet I ain’t slippin’ off the support hose for the likes of you.”

  The female voice crackled in Nikki’s ears and wiped the smile off her face.

  It couldn’t be.

  “Well don’t just lay there. I already said no, and that fella you had in here’s long gone for now. Get your butt up so’s I can change the sheets.”

  Nikki forced one eye open.

  Winona Adkins peered down at her over a thick pair of bifocals.

  Winona was the great-grandmother of Eldin Adkins, owner of the Skull Creek Inn and the Elk Lodge’s current bingo champion. Eldin’s parents had retired to Port Aransas and left him in charge of the inn and Winona.

  Winona, who was as headstrong as she was nosy, saw things a little differently. She kept her chubby hands in everything, from the front desk to the housekeeping. She also kept the entire senior ladies’ bingo squad informed of the latest gossip. Winona was the squad’s president and best friend to Nikki’s great-aunt Izzie.

  Nikki blinked, hoping the old woman would disappear. Instead the sleepy fog lifted. Her vision cleared, and Winona’s features went from blurry and dreamlike to sharp and focused in a matter of seconds.

  With a short, chubby body, a head full of snow-white hair and an aren’t-you-just-the-sweetest-lookin’-child smile, Winona looked like the classic grandmother. Her hair had been rolled into tight little sausages that covered her head like a football helmet. She wore the familiar flower-print smock, knee-high panty hose and white orthopedic shoes. Aqua Net mingled with Lysol hovered around her. She held a thick ring of keys in one hand and Nikki’s panties in the other.

  “I—I can explain.” So much for a discreet one-night stand. She’d been caught. Not in the act but close enough. And by Winona, of all people.

  Her gaze zeroed in on the white cotton undies. Her panties, for cripe’s sake.

  Her heart pounded as a dozen possible excuses rushed through her head.

  I sleepwalked in here and took off my undies.

  A saucer full of little green men held me at gunpoint and demanded I take off my undies.

  Those aren’t really my undies, they’re just an illusion.

  Her stomach knotted and her throat went tight. Think, her brain screamed. She needed a semiplausible story that would salvage as much face as possible.

  “I—I was just visiting the man in this room,” she blurted. “He’s an old friend and we haven’t seen each other in such a long time and we had so much to talk about. One minute we were reminiscing, and the next I was out like a light. I’ve put in so many long days at the salon. I guess they finally caught up with me.” She summoned a loud yawn.

  “You really know the handsome young man who rented this room?”

  “Not in the biblical sense,” she rushed on, crossing her fingers under the sheet. “We’re just friends. Buddies. Old, old acquaintances. I can’t believe I just conked right out on him. He slept on the floor and left the bed to me.” There. She’d done it. Semiplausible. Now all Winona had to do was bite.

  “Of course he did.” She nodded. “The minute I opened the door I figured it was something like that.”

  As lame as it had been, the old woman had bought it. Despite the undies in her hand and the rest of Nikki’s clothing that lay in full view of God and everyone.

  Nikki waited for a rush of relief, but it didn’t come. Instead time pulled at her and suddenly she was back in high school. The only girl who didn’t get mentioned on the boy’s bathroom wall. The opposite of her mother, who’d gotten her name and number scribbled with frightening regularity.

  Nikki had been proud of both at the time. But at the moment…

  “I mean, really,” Winona went on. “You and that handsome young man? Talk about crazy.”

  “I don’t know if I would go that far.”

  “Are you kidding? I saw him when he checked in last night and, bel
ieve me, the two of you are totally wrong for each other.” Winona patted her shoulder. “Not that you’re chopped liver or anything like that. But you’re not anywhere close to centerfold material, and that boy’s straight off the pages of one of them GQ magazines.”

  “But opposites attract,” Nicki heard herself say.

  “Opposites, sugar, as in same species. That boy’s from the so-good-looking-it’s-a-downright-shame planet. You…well, you’re nice.”

  “Men like nice.”

  Winona gave her a get-out-of-here look. “Men, child, like nice if they’re looking for a housekeeper or a nanny or a personal assistant. If they’re looking to fornicate…well, nice just doesn’t cut it. See, there are two types of women in this world. You’ve got your drop-dead man teasers like Mae West and Marilyn Monroe. That’s the sort a man goes for if he wants a love interest. The pleasers—those poor, desperate souls so starved for love that they’ll do just about anything for a man except sleep with him—are the nice girls. The sort that’ll make you cookies for Valentine’s Day instead of doing a striptease and giving a lap dance. The pleasers operate with the misguided notion that the way to a man’s heart doesn’t involve a direct route through his pants. Not true, on account of a man’s heart is located directly in his pants.”

  She was not hearing this.

  Not now.

  And certainly not from Winona.

  The woman stood next to Nicki’s great-aunt Izzie in the church choir every Sunday morning. And she played Mrs. Claus during the tree-lighting festival at Christmas. And she spearheaded the Pies for Pennies charity bake sale every other Friday.

  Like Nikki’s aunt Izzie, the old woman was wholesome and sweet and…nice.

  At the same time, Nikki remembered her mother talking about Winona when she’d been much younger and not so nice. She’d had bright red hair and matching lipstick and, rumor had it, had spent her evenings down at the local saloon.

  “Now it’s not that men don’t like the pleasers,” Winona went on. “They do. They just don’t see themselves spending eternity with a woman who’d rather cook for them than warm the sheets. Men see those kind of women more like sisters. Somebody to listen when a man feels like whining, to cook when he feels like eating and to boost his ego when he feels down and out. Sure, men get involved with pleasers every lovin’ day, but the first whiff they catch of a teaser, bam—” she slapped her hands together “—the pleaser is stuck home on a Friday night watching reruns of Dog the Bounty Hunter.” She eyed the T-shirt draped over the back of a nearby chair and shook her head. “Did Bill get you that?”

  “I am not a pleaser.”

  Winona smiled. “You should be proud, dear. You’re a good girl. Not a thing like your mama.” Winona frowned. “Now there’s a teaser for you. Jolene’s right up there with Pamela Anderson. Poor Izzie. She’s always had her hands full with that one. But you…you’re a good girl. Why, you’re the spittin’ image of Izzie herself at your age. That woman was, is and always will be a saint.”

  “We had sex,” Nikki blurted.

  “Always putting others first and going out of her way and—excuse me?”

  Yeah. Excuse me? common sense demanded.

  But Nikki’s pride had shifted into overdrive, not to mention the sudden urge to defend her mother, and the words starting pouring out before she could stop them. “Me and the good-looking man who checked into this room—Jake,” she heard herself say. “His name is Jake and we had sex. Lots of sex.” She snatched the white undies from Winona’s hand. “He couldn’t keep his hands off me.”

  “The man who checked into this room?”

  “Jake McCann.” Nikki hiked the sheet up under her arms and scooted toward the edge of the bed. “He’s totally enamored of me.” She pushed to her feet, careful to wrap the sheet around her. “All he thinks about is me.” She wiggled to the far corner of the room and retrieved her jeans and T-shirt. “And sex.” Winona looked shocked and Nikki gave herself a mental high-five. “It’s been really nice talking to you.” And then she turned, waddled toward the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her.

  She leaned back against the cool wood and closed her eyes. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm as the past few seconds replayed in her mind.

  A smile tugged at her lips.

  But the satisfaction she’d felt at blabbing out the truth—the sex part anyhow—quickly fled as she realized that she’d blown her reputation in less than a full minute.

  Her mother was going to be the happiest woman in the world.

  As for Aunt Izzie…

  Nikki didn’t want to think about that right now. She couldn’t. She was too busy trying to digest Winona’s words. A pleaser? Is that what the people in town really thought of her? That she was desperate? Starved for love?

  If the T-shirt fits…

  She’d been starved for sex, not love.

  She had plenty of love in her life. She had friends who appreciated her. A mother who adored her. A great-aunt who treasured her.

  Granted, the emotions didn’t come from a man. But she didn’t need a man in her life at this very second. Which was the reason she wasn’t at all bummed that Jake McCann had up and left without so much as a few words scribbled on a Post-it.

  Sure, she would eventually start dating again and, hopefully, find the right man. But until then she was content being single. She liked her freedom.

  She relished it.

  Yeah, that explains why you feel disappointed.

  Disappointed?

  Hardly. She’d gone into last night knowing full well that it was a one-night stand only. A way to burn off the frustration that had been making her completely and totally crazy.

  Mission accomplished.

  Nikki listened to the footsteps on the other side of the door, followed by the jingle of keys and the heavy creak of hinges. Then everything went silent.

  She splashed cold water onto her face and patted it dry. Dropping the sheet, she scrambled into her clothes. A few seconds later, she pulled open the bathroom door.

  She spared a quick glance around the room. There was no suitcase. No personal items scattered across the dresser. No clothes hanging in the closet. And definitely no note.

  And the problem is?

  There was no problem. It had been one night and it was now morning. Which meant over. Done. Fini.

  She swallowed against the regret creeping up her throat, snatched up her purse and headed for the door.

  It was time to forget all about last night and get back to work.

  The minute the thought struck, anxiety rushed through her. She glanced at her watch. She was three hours late.

  The realization stirred a memory of a small girl sitting up on the couch all night, waiting for her mother to come home. She’d spent so much of her life waiting. And being disappointed.

  Not that she resented Jolene. The woman wasn’t nearly as irresponsible as she’d once been. As wild as ever, maybe, but at least she no longer made promises she couldn’t keep. She loved Nikki, and Nikki loved her, and they’d made peace with the past.

  Even so, Nikki liked being on time.

  She left the hotel room behind, climbed into her SUV and gunned the engine. She had to get home, get changed and, most of all, get her act together.

  That meant forgetting Jake.

  A dark, sexy, erotic image rushed at her and brought a burst of heat to her cheeks. Her nipples tingled. Her thighs ached. Her foot faltered on the gas and she found herself stuck at a red light.

  Three hours and counting…

  6

  IT WAS ALMOST noon by the time Nikki pulled open the swinging glass door and walked into To Dye For.

  As was typical on any given Saturday, every seat was filled. From the cutting stations to the shampoo chairs, to the half dozen hair dryers that lined the far wall.

  Nikki drew a deep breath and gave an apologetic smile as she bypassed the small reception area and one very unhappy client.

  Jean MacGregor wa
s an older woman with lots of wrinkles, dyed brown hair and sparkling silver eye shadow. A coral pantsuit hugged her overweight rump and sizable breasts. A pair of gold cat’s-eye glasses hung from a chain around her neck. She smelled of expensive perfume and way too many cigarettes.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. MacGregor. I lost my keys and then I had a flat tire and then a button fell off my blouse and…” The excuses tumbled out, one after the other, until Jean waved her silent.

  “At least you’re here now. That man simply can’t get my hair to curl the way you do.”

  That man referred to Charlie Kendall, Nikki’s top stylist and best friend, currently teasing up a storm at a nearby station. With great taste, pretty-boy good looks and a footwear wardrobe that would make Carrie from Sex and the City jealous, he smacked of gay.

  In reality, he was simply the one and only metrosexual in Skull Creek. He had a wife named Darlene, a mortgage and a Chihuahua named Lulu.

  “The last time he did me, he used a flatiron and sent me to a city council luncheon with my hair completely straight.”

  “Sounds trendy.”

  “I looked like my granddaughter’s Mrs. Potato Head.” She shook her head. “I’m a big woman, dear. I need big hair to balance out the package.”

  “Just let me get set up and I’ll be right with you.” Nikki paused at the reception desk, where a familiar denim-clad butt bobbed behind the Formica counter. “Hey, Dill. What’s the problem now?”

  The butt morphed into a tall man with sandy blond hair and black-framed glasses. Dillon Cash. Known the world over as Dill thanks to the green pickle suit he’d worn in the kindergarten health pageant. He was now owner and operator of the town’s only computer store, located directly across the street from Nikki’s salon. While she’d inherited the nice label, Dill had geek tattooed on his forehead.

  “Oh, hey, Nikki.” He shoved his thick glasses up onto the bridge of his nose, his pale green eyes barely visible behind the quarter-inch-thick lenses. “I didn’t see you.”

  “I just came in. What’s going on?”

  “Charlie called this morning. Your hard drive is acting up. I can fix it, but I’ll have to take it back to the store with me.”