Read To Catch a Vampire for Free Online

buzzes, and the gate slowly opens like the parting of an ivy sea. The rest of the house comes into view. Oh my goodness, I’m staying at Tara from Gone with the Wind . It’s beautiful. I live in a mansion now, but I’m still a sucker for a grand house. Three stories with a wraparound porch on all three levels secured with roman columns and metal fences around the perimeter. We pull up the red brick driveway past oak trees covered in Spanish moss. There have to be close to a dozen windows on each floor, strangely some showing white lace curtains and others blacked out. Patio furniture is placed around the three porches: tables, chairs, even a swing per level. The ivy—
    Oh. My. God.
    No way … is that … my mouth drops open. A naked woman! There is a naked woman—naked!—lounging in a deck chair on the top floor! She’s totally naked! What the heck kind of place is this with people being naked in public? Shame , don’t these people know the word? I swear that if Oliver picked the only nudist hotel in Dallas, I’ll stake him myself. If the driver notices Lady Godiva up there, he doesn’t show it. Or worse, maybe he’s used to it.
    A man in a crisp white shirt and khakis strides out of the double doors just as the van reaches the brick steps. He’s a tad younger than me with curly blonde hair and a perfect jaw line. Even the staff is beautiful in the vampire world. That red-headed stepchild feeling creeps back. No way they’ll believe Oliver and I are an item.
    We’re so going to be killed.
    The preppy hunk opens my door. “Mrs. Smythe?” he asks in an adorable Texas drawl. “Welcome to the Dauphine.” He holds out his hand to help me out of the car, which I take. I need all the help I can get in these heels. The heat and humidity hit, and I’m immediately in a sauna. I think I can actually feel my hair frizzing. “Hot enough for you, ma’am?” Golden boy chuckles. He leads me up the stairs to the door.
    “What about—”
    “We’ll take your bags and companion to the room. Don’t you worry.”
    What, me, worry?
    We walk through the doors, both of which have stained glass windows with a blooming rose, as the van rolls away. Strangely, my anxiety spikes as the van disappears from view. I’m alone. Oliver’s totally helpless—literally dead to the world—but not having him close scares the snot out of me. Not that he could do anything, but still.
    I jump when the gorgeous man touches my arm. “Is there something wrong?”
    “Um, just tired, thank you.”
    “Right this way. I’m Cole, by the way. Anything you need, I’m your man. We’ll get you to your room as quick as we can.”
    Cole leads me past the winding wraparound staircase and oil paintings of men dressed in animal skins or Confederate uniforms holding guns. Compared to outside, the house is as dark as a well. The walls are covered with rich purple wallpaper with black Fleur-de -lis patterns up and down. Brown mahogany furniture complete with a grandfather clock fills the small space. At the top of the stairs hangs a painting that would cover the entire ceiling of my old apartment. In it, a woman with dark brown hair pinned up with only curly ringlets free, latté Latin skin, red bee-stung lips, and a huge pink dress to rival Scarlet O’Hara’s lounges in a chair. Pre–Civil War. “That’s Marianna De Fuerte,” Cole says. “She owns the hotel. If you ask, she’ll tell you who was better in bed, General Santa Ana or Davy Crockett.” Huh. I wonder if he wore the coonskin cap to bed.
    Cole gently takes my arm, guiding me into the study. Two dark green leather chairs sit in the corner next to a matching fainting couch. More paintings fill the remaining two walls. The one of the Regency foxhunt is particularly bold. Men with guns watch smiling as two hounds rip apart what was once a fox. Lovely.
    “Please have a seat,” Cole says as he sits behind the desk that holds the only thing from the last century. Even vampires have jumped