A Taste Of A Vampire

She could have Colin handle the sale of the manor over to Drake, if no one else came forward to buy it, and she would go back to her life and her time in England would become a sweet, strange dream.

“Drake, I do have to get back to the manor. I’m afraid it’s time we were leaving,” she said, pushing herself up from the table. He frowned a little, but got up with her and drove her back to her home. She was grateful that he kept the conversation on the way back to Grayson Manor as lighthearted as it had been on the way to the pub. She didn’t want to have any other deep conversations with him, or ignite any other perceived challenges in his mind.

He hugged her goodbye at the door, and when he tried to kiss her mouth, she turned her head and he ended up kissing her cheek instead. She knew he was displeased by it, but there was something in it that seemed to appeal to the challenge that she had supposedly presented him with. It was clear to her that he saw her aversion to his kiss as part of the challenge. It was a move by her to tempt him to want more. He told her that he was going to work for it and win her, all of her, and then he left in a rush of excitement.

With a sigh, she let herself into Grayson Manor and wandered out to the garden to give herself some time in a peaceful place to think. The sun sunk low in the sky and she thought about what she would do with the estate. She thought about Drake’s persistence in getting the manor, and in getting her, and she felt torn by it. It was important to her to have someone take over the estate who would keep the staff there, but she hoped that it could be anyone but Lord Drake Thomas.

She wondered how he could have taken such a keen and swift interest in her, but then she couldn’t fault him for any sudden interest in her, when she had fallen so fast and so much for Nicholas Ryder. Her thoughts went to him, and they stayed there as the rich, brilliant colors of the sunset blazed over the sky.

Claire wondered again for the umpteenth time if they had really made love, if he had touched her and kissed her and moved inside of her the way she remembered him doing every one of those things, or if it was some elaborate and exquisitely detailed dream. She couldn’t tell, but she did know that she had never wanted any man as much as she had wanted him, and dream or reality, she had never known as much pleasure as she had in his arms. It took her breath away just thinking about it, and her body ached deeply for him, just at the memory of their shared passion.

As the heavens darkened and the sky was filled with scintillating diamonds of light, she made her way to her bed, hoping that her dreams would be of him, and that they would never end.

***

She woke in the morning and remembered dreaming that he had been standing over her, gazing at her, just out of her reach, even though she wanted him to come to her, and she knew that he wanted her just as much. He wouldn’t move; he only stayed there and watched her, as if he was in pensive thought, working out some tangle in his mind. She had tried to call out to him, but she could only whisper his name.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, she had fallen into a dark and deep slumber, and he had vanished. She had been alone, and she remembered that just as clearly as she remembered him standing before her wanting her.

She only had enough of an appetite for coffee the next morning. She sat with it and pondered her dreams, biting at her lip and wondering what was happening that she was getting so thoroughly wrapped up in such a strange man in a foreign land, and one that she was only visiting. She’d already have been gone if it wasn’t for Colin Dent not being able to be there for their scheduled meeting.

It was ironic to her that if he had come, the property would either be for sale or Lord Drake Thomas would own it, and she would be back at her apartment in Manhattan, going to work at her desk and answering the phone to speak with a client. She was a million miles from that, and if felt as if she was a lifetime away from it as well.

The thought occurred to her that she might find some kind of counsel in her great-great-great-grandmother’s journal, as Elizabeth had gone through something so similar to what she was going through, only it had been with Nathaniel Ryder. It was still strange to her that she and her great-great-great-grandmother, who she looked so much like, had both fallen so quickly for two men from the same family, so many generations apart. It was astounding to her.

She took her coffee and went to her room, sitting on a chaise lounge near the open doors of the balcony, with her coffee on a small table beside her and Elizabeth’s diary in her hands. She carefully opened the delicate cover and sifted through the pages to the place where she had gently laid the time-worn ribbon. She began to read where she had left off.

“I cannot seem to get over thinking about Nathaniel. He is consuming every part of my waking hours and my dreams. It’s almost as if he is here, with me, watching me sleep. I look up in my dreams as I lay in my bed, and I see him standing so close nearby, I want to reach my hand out to him. I want to bring him to me, and beg him to satisfy the desires that he ignites in me. I am a maiden, and never having been with any man before, I do not know the true feelings of the passions of the flesh, but I do know that there is a hunger in me that craves him, something that I cannot deny. I want to be with him as desperately as my lungs need the air to breathe. I don’t know if he’s aware of it, if he knows, but if he does, he certainly hasn’t acted on it. He comes nearer to me in those rare moments when we are alone, and it is in those moments that I wish so much for him to take me into his arms. It is then that I need him the most, and I do not feel that I can ignore the love and desire that I have for him. I have to speak with him soon, to tell him precisely how I feel, so that he may ask me to be his bride, if it is what he wants. I cannot choose Giles over him. It could not be possible, unless he didn’t want me. I know that I will never love another man as I love him; not to the depth or fullness of the passion I feel. It couldn’t be possible to ever love this much again. I must speak to him soon. I cannot continue to need him this way and deny myself that which might be mine.”

Claire read the passage over and over again and shook her head, amazed at the similarities between her great-great-great-grandmother Elizabeth and Nathaniel’s courtship, and her own encounters with Nathaniel’s descendant Nicholas. It was uncanny to her that her great-great-great-grandmother would have dreamed of Nathaniel the same way that she dreamt of Nicholas. She read on.