Accidentally Dead Read online

“Had many girlie-girls?”

  His expression grew sheepish. “A couple.”

  “Well, I guess those days are over.”

  “As are yours for pushing men around. I’m not easily pushed.”

  “Yeahhhhh—that’s kinda hot.”

  “That I won’t take your shit?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How informative,” he drawled, giving her a lazy smile, finally pulling her to him with strong, lean hands firmly clamped around her waist.

  Nina sank into him, relaxing for the first time in two days. “See? Look at all this sharing we’re doing. In no time flat you’ll know everything about me and be bored to death, um, eternity.”

  “I just don’t see life with you as boring.”

  “E-ter-ni-ty,” she corrected, gazing up into his green eyes. “Forever, many, many, many lives.

  “I get it.”

  “Do you? I mean, really?”

  “After all this, I’d better.”

  Her giggle seemed foreign to her ears. Kinda like the ones Marty and Wanda spewed when they were twirling their hair and flirting.

  The silence between them grew, Greg’s gaze becoming serious, heated.

  “So, ya wanna watch Beaches?” she teased.

  His finger traced the top of her dress, now ripped and stained from the battle to mate. Greg dipped a finger between her breasts, making Nina’s nipples turn to tight beads. “Uh, no. I wanna watch you naked,” he husked out, splaying his hands along her waist and curving them into her hips.

  Nina arched into him, her spine tingling with those magnified rushes of heat. Her arms draped around his neck, molding herself to his body, reveling in the rigid line of his cock through his jeans.

  His lips slid over her jaw, his tongue snaking out to caress her neck in hot swipes. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight? Even in the midst of Melvin and company. Did you do this for me?”

  “And if I said yes?”

  “I’d say bravo.”

  Nina hid her face in his neck. “Then it was worth all the crap getting there.” She kicked off her heels, wiggling her toes to uncrimp them. “And let me tell you about the getting there. Jesus, what a production. My hair feels like cardboard, my eyes are going to glue shut any freakin’ moment, my lips are like flypaper, and this damned bra. Who, in all of their friggin’ maniacal insanity, thought creating the plunge was a good idea?”

  Greg reached down and slipped the dress up over her hips, the sensuous slide of it leaving a trail of shivers. “I say you let me see the product of this insanity, and I’ll take a guess.” He threw Wanda’s dress on the floor, cupping Nina’s bra-covered breasts, leaning down and kissing the rounded swell of each one. “I dunno,” he muttered against her skin, “this is pretty smokin’.”

  She silently preened, running her fingers through his thick hair, pulling his lips closer as he inched his way inside her bra with his lips. Unhooking it, he let it fall, sliding it off her shoulders and dropping it to the floor.

  Her moan was low, husky, hot. Her head fell back on her shoulders, her hands reaching for Greg’s shoulders as he took a nipple in his mouth and suckled. The hard tug sent sharp stings of pleasure between her legs.

  Greg tugged at her nylons, rolling them over her hips, pushing them past her thighs until she shrugged out of them. Her panties soon followed in a soft whisper of silk.

  Nina grew impatient to feel the press of his skin against hers. Her fingers fumbled, tugging his shirt off, unzipping his jeans, shoving his boxer briefs to the floor, and finally, clamping a hand around the stiff length of his cock.

  It was his turn to moan against her nipple. Rising to mesh her length with his, he threw his shoes off and walked her backward. The backs of her knees touched the edge of the bed, and then she felt the soft mattress against her spine.

  Greg hiked her leg up around his waist, sliding his fingers between the soft folds of her sex, teasing her clit with long strokes. They found each other’s mouths, clinging, sliding tongue against tongue, delving deeper until she was dizzy.

  Greg swept his hands over the slope of her hip, turning her to lie on her stomach, rising up over her and letting the outline of his body weigh with enticing anticipation above hers. His hair skittered across her spine as he kissed along her back, over her shoulders, down along her spine, past the curve of her ass to nudge his head between her thighs.

  He clamped a hand on the inside of each leg and dipped his head between them. Her hips rose of their own accord, lifting to accommodate him, gripping the sheets at either side of her when he stroked the outer lips of her aching sex. His descent between them was unhurried, parting them with excruciating, deliberate slowness.

  The first touch of his tongue to her clit sent her muscles into a tight spasm, making her rear upward, her spine curving toward the mattress, his hum of pleasure making her weak. Greg’s large hands crept up to cup both of her breasts, tweaking the nipples into rigid peaks.

  As she rested her sex on the heat of his mouth, sliding back and forth with a seductive, slow rocking motion, he lapped at her, making her fingers curl into the pillows above her as the rise of orgasm swelled in her belly. This time it didn’t take her by surprise, but took a slow path, wending along each inch of her body until it settled in the depths of her swollen sex.

  Nina’s cry was hoarse, unbridled, and desperate when she came, pressing herself flush to his mouth until the sharp, pleasurable sting subsided.

  Greg slid from between her thighs, moving up to lie beside her. He brushed the hair from her face, dragging her thigh back up around his waist and cupping her ass.

  The head of his cock poised at her entrance, but he paused. His green eyes, solemn, smoldering, piercing, scanned hers.

  Nina shifted her hips with impatience as she held his gaze, her stomach in a knot, her need to have him inside her fraught with desperation.

  Greg’s incisors lengthened, and just as he drove into her, his teeth sank into her neck. He plunged upward, stroke after flaming stroke, thrusting into her, while his lips clamped onto the stretch of Nina’s skin.

  An aching, exquisitely painful wave of carnal pleasure swept over her, consuming her, dragging her to a height she’d never been to. She shook in his arms, helpless to fight the primal, gut-wrenching assault of indescribable sensations. Just as she reached the crest of this harried wave, it dropped her with a suddenness that made her clench her thighs more tightly around him, grit her teeth, dig her nails into his back.

  Greg bucked within her, only barely noticeable, she was so lost in this newfound height of pleasure. She came with a short, sharp scream, grinding her hips to his, driving them upward to take every last inch of his cock.

  When Greg tensed against her, each muscle in his body letting go like arrows from a bow, he collapsed against her neck, limp.

  Her hands cradled his head, smoothing his hair, running her hands over the hard planes of his back.

  “Whoa,” she muttered against the top of his head.

  “A decided whoa,” he chuckled back, pushing up to meet her at eye level so their noses touched.

  “Uh, that neck thing? Hot, very, very hot.”

  “Just another little vampire perk.”

  “It rocks.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing you feel that way because you can’t ever do that with anyone else. For e—ter—ni—ty.”

  Nina rolled her eyes at him. “You’re really crackin’ on me about that. I know what I got myself into, Wing Man. It’s you who should start thinking about a hundred years down the road when I’ve reamed you out for the umpteenth time. I can be difficult at best.”

  He winked. “Difficult is hot.”

  “Ya think?”

  He kissed her lips, savoring them with his tongue. “I think.”

  Greg curved her body into his, tucking her beneath his chin.

  “Sooooooo…”

  “Sooooooo…”

  “Ya wanna watch Beaches?”

  “Is t
his what my eternity is in for?”

  “I did warn you.”

  “I think there are other things we could be doing.”

  “What’s better than Beaches, for Christ’s sake?” she teased.

  He covered her body with his, sinking his delicious weight into her. “This,” he murmured, capturing her lips with his.

  “Ohhhh, that,” she muttered against the slide of his tongue.

  Well, then.

  That beat Beaches every time.

  EPILOGUE

  Four Months Later

  Wanda waved the keys to her new sky blue convertible at Nina and Marty with pride. They’d gathered at Nina and Greg’s to celebrate her most shining achievement. Nina couldn’t help but notice how tired Wanda still looked these days, and she had to hope it was from all that Bobbie-Sue-ing she was doing. Not something else. Watching Wanda gnawed at her gut, but she set it aside, because Wanda’s smile was wide and her spirits were high as a kite.

  Marty sat cross-legged on the couch across from Nina, who’d planted herself on the edge of Greg’s desk. “I’m so proud of you, Wanda, even if sky blue is totally not in your color wheel.”

  Wanda laughed, and Nina noticed the lines around her eyes seemed more prominent, dark smudges beneath them stood out, despite her makeup. “Well, how about I stick to the convertibles because I can assure you, vampires and werewolves aren’t in my color wheel.”

  Nina’s acute senses had begun to pick up the subtleties of her friend’s emotions as of late, and she detected sadness in Wanda’s words. Maybe she was lonely. “I’d be happy to introduce you to some of the clan members. Of course, you’d have to come to Long Island more often and give up those cheesy romance novels at night.”

  Wanda’s bark of laughter made Nina smile. “I think I’m okay with single, thanks. I was married long enough to know I don’t want to do it again. Romance novels are much safer. I mean, where else can you get an H—”

  “EA,” Nina finished for her. “And an alpha male and a duke and a lord of the manor and a rake and all the sappy stuff that comes with women’s fiction.”

  “Speaking of alpha males,” Marty interjected. “Where’s the bloodsucker?”

  Greg poked his head around the corner. “I’m here. Ladies, I hear congratulations are in order for Wanda.” He took two strides and planted a kiss on Wanda’s cheek, then went to Nina’s side, gathering her to him.

  The comfort he brought when he put his arm around her always left Nina amazed. No matter what they fought about—and just because they were mated for eternity didn’t mean they didn’t still throw down—no matter how much she swore and threatened him, at the end of the evening, lying beside him in that big bed made eternity seem like icing on the cake.

  “So, all’s well that ends well, eh, potty mouth?” Marty chided with a grin.

  Yeah, all was well, and that thing called love had hit Nina in one big slap to the head one night a month or so ago when she’d caught Greg trying to hide a Ring Ding he’d been stuffing into his mouth like it was the Last Supper. The look of pure guilt on his face, coupled with his total remorse because he was able to eat something she still couldn’t, had been the clincher. She’d said the words as easily as she’d once called him a fucktard, and Greg had returned them, after he’d brushed and rinsed his mouth out with Listerine.

  This eternity thing was going really well so far, and the deeper she got, the harder she fell. This mating of circumstance had turned into something bigger than Nina was able to take on with two fists and some cussing.

  Though her biggest regret was not having Lou with her when she’d mated. No way would Lou’s health have been up to taking the kind of chaos that had happened that night.

  Like she could have explained what went down anyway. Lou didn’t know they’d mated for life just yet—or even that she and Greg were vampires. She thought they were living together here in Castlevania. She’d stated her desire to come visit once she was up and around. She was recuperating nicely, and in celebration of Nina and Greg moving in together, she’d had her day nurse send a statue of the Virgin Mary—which Greg promptly stuffed away in a cabinet until Lou was able to drop in. There’d be time enough to tell Lou about what had happened her first day on the job.

  A job…that was something that had troubled her a great deal while she came to terms and adjusted to her immortality. She was working class and always would be. The idea of doing nothing with her eternity but hanging out in a castle just wasn’t cool.

  Working during the day was out of the question until she’d begun to build up this tolerance Greg talked about. For now, it was an impossibility. But Svetlanna had offered a suggestion that Nina had at first scoffed at, then with the encouragement of Greg and under the tutelage of some very patient coworkers, she’d joined Svetlanna’s company Fango—as the head of quality control.

  Who better than Nina of the big mouth to bully perfection out of people, Wanda had joked.

  And Wanda was right, though her hat was off to Svetlanna for teaching her the finer points of being diplomatic—over and over. But she was conquering her potty mouth, and even if clothes weren’t her thing—telling people what to do was.

  Diplomatically, of course.

  Nina snuggled against Greg, letting her hand rest on his thigh. “Yeah, Princess Marty. All’s well that ends well. How’s the head dog?”

  Marty jumped up off the couch. “Quit calling us dogs, you, you neck gnawer. You only wish you could do the things I can.”

  “Like shed?” Nina snorted.

  “Oh, please, tell me one thing you can do as a vampire that’s cooler than what I can do as a werewolf. Go on.” Her hands had gone to her hips, and her neck stuck out in a challenge.

  “You know, you two are like a never-ending boxing match. Who cares who has better superpowers? I mean, really, who wants to drink blood and shift into a hairball,” Wanda said from the couch.

  Nina’s smile was secretive. “I bet you’d feel differently if you could fly, Wanda.”

  Marty gasped her outrage. “Oh, you cannot either fly, Nina. You’re so full of horse puckey.”

  “The hell I can’t—ask Greg.”

  Greg nodded his head. “She’s working on it.”

  “Okay, so I’m not totally there yet, but I have lifted off, and you’re just jealous, Marty, because I have cooler powers than you.”

  “You do not.”

  “Flying beats shifting every time,” Nina crowed.

  “Knock it off!” Wanda yelped. “Jeez, could we just have a nice, quiet evening together without whipping around our paranormal weapons with challenges of death by teeth and fur? The two of you will be the end of me someday.”

  Nina giggled. “And where would you be if you didn’t have to referee me and Marty. Your life would be sooooo boring. We keep things interesting.”

  Greg laughed, nuzzling the top of her head. “That’s definitely something we’re not around here, huh, honey?” He looked down at Nina, grinning.

  “Oh, life is definitely not boring with you, Wing Man,” she whispered.

  Definitely not.

  Dakota Cassidy lives for a good laugh in life and in her writing. In fact, she almost loves a good giggle as much as she loves hair products and that’s saying something.

  Her goals in life are simple (like, really simple): banish the color yellow forever; create world peace via hot rollers and Aqua Net; and finally, nab every tiara in the land by competing in the Miss USA, Miss Universe, and Miss World pageants, then sweeping them in a stunning trifecta of much duct tape and Vaseline usage, all in just under a week’s time. All while she writes really fun books!

  She loves people, loves to chat, and would love it if you’d come say hello to her on the Yahoo! group of “Accidental Fans.” Join Dakota and friends in the chaos by sending an email to [email protected], or visit her website at www.dakotacassidy.com.

  Dakota lives in Texas with her two sons, her mother, and more cats and do
gs than the local animal shelter, and she has a boyfriend who puts the heroes in her books to shame. You can contact her at [email protected]. She’d love to hear from you!

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