Read NocC 025 - Caridad Pineiro - Her Vampire Lover - Harlequin 2012-10 for Free Online Page A

anything else.
    “Tell me how you became a vampire.”

Chapter 6
    Where to begin? Gregori thought. He knew she had scattered bits and pieces of the stories from the exchange of memories that had happened with each bite. But putting all that together into his story?
    She couldn’t have picked a more painful episode in his life.
    She rubbed her hand across his chest in a gentling motion, trying to ease the unrest she sensed in him. She was apologetic as she said, “It’s okay, Gregori.”
    “No, it’s time. I haven’t shared that story with anyone in a long time.” And never with a woman, he thought, but kept that to himself, afraid that she already had too much power over him.
    “My father defied his parents by marrying my mother. She was Jewish and sickly. They worried about both, I think, although I think my grandparents were a bit relieved when I came along.”
    “They had their heir,” she filled in for him and he confirmed it with a grunt.
    “There had sometimes been trouble in the cities with the Jewish citizens, so my father chose to keep us in the countryside. Especially after the Nazis arrived.”
    She tensed beside him and met his gaze. He realized the images were coming together to form the story in her mind. “You had to come to the city because your mother was ill.”
    He nodded. “We got caught when we visited her Jewish doctor and were soon on a train and on our way to a concentration camp.”
    “That’s where it happened.”
    The memories raced through his brain, vividly alive despite the passage of time. “They knew how to cull out the weak. They pulled my mother aside as soon as we got there. Cracked my father’s skull open when he fought to keep her with us.”
    “But he didn’t die then,” she said and reached up, cradling his jaw to offer yet more comfort. “You did what you could.”
    He had. He had volunteered himself for their experiments in exchange for his parents’ lives. Thanks to him they’d had a few more months. Hard months. He often wondered if he had done them a favor or only prolonged their agony.
    “I would have given anything to have more time with someone I loved.”
    Her words eased one heartache, but awoke another: the thought of losing her. He would, he knew. No woman would want to spend her life with a vampire. No one as young and healthy as Sonja would willingly give up their human life for that of one of the undead.
    “Don’t be sad, Gregori,” she said, her touch calming and loving. He would take it for now and keep the memory of it for once she was gone.
    “Rest, Sonja. We only have a couple of hours until we reach Prague.”
    “So soon?” she asked, giving life to hope within him. So much so that he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Will you come home with me?”
    He didn’t want to leave her. Didn’t want her to leave him, but he wouldn’t use his vampire powers to keep her with him even though he could. He wanted her to make that choice freely.
    Her quick “yes” filled him with joy.
    With a smile on his face, he said, “Sleep, my love.”
    She murmured a sleepy goodnight and closed her eyes, tucked tight to his chest, his softening cock still pleasantly nestled in her warmth.
    The night was his time, so it was impossible for him to rest. That would come in the morning as the rise of the sun stole his strength and forced him to sleep.
    For now, he simply enjoyed the feel of her, so trusting in his arms, so filled with passion as they made love. Just the memory of that had him growing hard again, something he hadn’t thought possible considering how well he had been satisfied.
    She was too tired and drained by his bite to notice right away and so he let her rest, content to lie tucked inside her until an hour passed and she slowly awakened beside him. As she opened her eyes, they were dilated with sleepy desire and he knew that this time, their loving would be slow and tender.
    He lazily played with her breasts and she reached down to