Forever Valentine

A Valentine date gone wrong is the start of a romance for the ages.

Ian has seen a lot in his time, but the lovely doctor he's been assigned to follow calls to him like no other woman. Jena has had a hard introduction to the world of vampires, and she knows Ian is watching to make sure she keeps their secret.

Night after night, she feels his presence until finally, on Valentine's night, she invites him in for a drink after her date for the evening goes terribly wrong. But once she invites the vampire in, she might just be tempted to keep him...forever.

Note: This novella was first published in 2007 with a different cover and ISBN number. It has been lightly edited for this, the 2nd edition.

CHAPTER ONE

Jena noted the vampire’s presence in the little bistro almost immediately. It was hard to miss a man as handsome as Ian Sinclair. They’d met at her friend Christy’s wedding. He was an old friend of the groom…a very old friend, considering the groom was a vampire with over two centuries under his belt.
Jena had learned about the existence of vampires the night Sebastian, Christy’s new husband, had saved her life. Christy had been under Jena’s care in the hospital, and Sebastian had needed her complicity in order to save Christy’s life. Christy’s first husband, Jeff, had finally beaten her to death, but Sebastian and his magic blood saved her and not long thereafter, Christy was free of Jeff for good and happily married to Sebastian.
As a doctor, Jena was fascinated by the idea of vampirism, though all of the vampires she now knew, refused to let her get close enough to try to figure out what made their blood so different. As a woman, Jena was intrigued by the vampire’s erotic power. Jena hadn’t let Sebastian turn Christy without first receiving some assurance that his bite wouldn’t hurt her more. No, Jena had demanded to be bitten first, so she would know for herself that Christy wouldn’t suffer.
What she’d felt when Sebastian first licked her neck, then bit down and sucked hard, had been unbelievable. An intense orgasm had shuddered through her body, though she’d had all her clothes on. Worse, she and Sebastian were in a hospital room full of their friends, ancient and newly turned alike, who watched every spasm of her ecstasy with varying degrees of envy and amusement. Jena might have died of embarrassment, if she hadn’t felt so damn good. Just the bite of the vampire, paired with his ability to influence her mind and sexual responses, had her climaxing shamelessly. And she’d only just met the man!
Jena had since learned that vampires fed not only on blood, but also on the psi energy that was strongest at the point of orgasm. Sex was sustenance to them, just as much as blood. They were erotic creatures in every sense of the word, and the males who were now mated to some of her closest friends were sexy in the extreme. They all seemed to exude some kind of animal magnetism that was incredibly hard to resist. It helped to remember that they were married to her best friends, and said friends now had sharp teeth of their own.
Then there was Ian.
An unmated, devastatingly handsome vampire with sad eyes that smoldered. Jena had spotted him across the reception hall at Christy’s lavish wedding and from that moment on, no other man seemed to exist in her world. He was tall, handsome as sin, and just looking at him made her body yearn with anticipation. Oh, he had the same sexual pull as the others, but like them, he had never focused it on her. If he had, she was very much afraid she would throw herself at him, strip naked in front of all the wedding guests and yank him down onto one of the catering tables to be roundly ravished.
He was just that sexy.