Christine Feehan - Hot Blooded - Anthology by Hot Blooded

Author:Hot Blooded
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 1

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The naked man stood at the edge of the forest, looking back over one broad shoulder at

Mariann. His hands were braced on a tree trunk and he was leaning forward, as if he were

a runner she'd caught stretching out his calves. Partly obscuring her view, his long, dark

hair spilled over rugged musculature to his waist.

It was night. She should not have been able to see him, but light shone from him in the

darkness, a scintillation of moonlike shine. Whatever the source of the glow, it made his

beautiful form even more distinct. His hips were narrow, his buttocks a tight, lip-licking

curve. One of his statue-perfect legs was bent. In the space between his thighs, she could

just make out the hang of his scrotum.

Watching him, wanting him, Mariann's body tightened with awareness. Fingers curled

against her urge to touch, she swallowed and took a step. She knew there had to be a

reason she could not see the rest.

The man knew the reason. He smiled with wicked self-assurance. "I've been waiting for

you," he said. "Don't you want to come with me?"

"CRAP," sighed Mariann O'Faolain as her old-fashioned, windup alarm clock started

jangling at 3 A.M.

Her body pulsed with frustration. The last thing she wanted was to shake off her dream.

It was, after all, the closest she'd come to getting lucky in the last six months. But that was

no reason to hug the pillow. Rolling over, she slapped the ringing silent with a single blow,

then blinked into the country dark.

I'm a vampire, she thought, breaking into a crooked grin. Up with the moon and down

with the sun.

Her mood improved, she threw the sheets off with a flourish no one was there to see. She

had half an hour to shower, dress, suck down a mug of espresso and feed her cat. Then it

was off to O'Faolain's, to get in a few uninterrupted hours of baking before the first of the

muffin-and-coffee crowd stumbled in. Mariann enjoyed her customers, but she loved

baking even more. How could she not? For nearly forty years O'Faolain's had been her

second home—more of a home, in fact, than the suburban rambler she'd grown up in. As to

that, her current residence, a drafty, nineteenth-century clapboard farmhouse inherited from

her grandparents, was much closer to her heart. Fake wood paneling and two-car garages

would never be Mariann's style.

Her mind ticking away at her to-do lists, she barely noticed she'd been in and out of the

bathroom until she unwound the sopping towel from her mop of tight black curls. A fresh

white T-shirt, courtesy of Maynard's Laundry, no-iron chinos, and a pair of sky-blue Keds

comprised her uniform for the day—for every day, actually, but Mariann couldn't be

bothered to dress like some freaking beanpole out of Vogue.

She was a working girl, thank you very much. Comfortable and clean was good enough

for her, and naked was strictly for dreams!

Her body still buzzed in memory as she clattered down the creaky stairs. The stove light

from the kitchen provided just enough light to see, and she promised herself for the

umpteenth time that she'd hire a carpenter to fix the missing spindles on the railing.

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